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
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
and felicity whereof we shall be seized on high in the Heavens It is best in my opinion to joyn these two expositions together that we may so comprehend the entire state of the whole inheritance of Saints who after they are once united to JESUS CHRIST do alwayes live in light first in that of grace during their pilgrimage on earth afterwards in that of glory Rev. 21.23 when they shall be raised up to that blessed City which hath no need of the Sun nor of the Moon because the brightness of GOD hath illuminated it and the Lamb is the light thereof 1 Thes 5.5 Phil. 2.15 Mat. 5.14 For this cause all the divine denizons of this heavenly State are called Children of light and of the day which should shine as lights in the midst of a perverse generation and be the light of the world as persons born of the light of the Spirit and of the word of God who being led by the rayes of their Sun of Righteousness walk on straight towards the supream source of lights where arrived they shall eternally dwell in that shine which will transform them into the image of their LORD from glory to glory by the power of His Omnipotent Spirit But it is time to come to the other verse in which the Apostle addeth what the Father hath done to make us thus capable of partaking in the inheritance of Saints in light He hath delivered us saith he from the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of His well-beloved Son By darkness the Scripture ordinarily understands ignorance and misery the two contraries of knowledge and joy which it signifies by light as we said even now For ignorance and error do hide the true and natural form of things from our understandings just as darkness doth wrap up visible objects from our bodily eyes And forasmuch as there is nothing more unpleasant to men nor more affrighting than the obscurity of darkness thence it comes that the term is also made use of to represent horrour trouble and misery So the power of darkness is nothing else but that tyranny which the Devil and sin do exercise over their slaves filling their spirits with deadly errours and brutish ignorances and their consciences either with affrightment or insensibility and training them on by little and little under this dismal yoke into the horrours of eternal death which our LORD often calleth outer-darkness where is weeping and gnashing of teeth For as knowledge and truth is a light necessary for the attainment of salvation so errour and ignorance infallibly lead to death Therefore the Devil the sworn enemy of our good blindeth men the most he possibly can spreading before them gross and thick mists which hide Heaven and its blessed brightness from them This is the summ of his craft and subtil operation The deep of his abyss doth ever vomit forth into our aire a black vapour for the rendring of our senses useless By this means he turned heretofore the Nations of the Earth from the service of their Creator obscuring and smothering by his illusions those sparkles of the knowledge of Him which they had and plunging them and holding them down in so deep ignorance that these miserable men were not ashamed Rom. 1.23 to adore the work of their own hands and change the glory of the incorruptible GOD into the resemblance and image of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed beasts and creeping things As for justice and honesty of life this impostor had so extinguished the lights which Providence had kindled for them in their hearts and so disordered all their knowledge by his seductions that the vilest abominations passed among them for indifferent things Walking on in so thick darkness it is no wonder if they were in continual fear they knew not where they went nor whither they should come and fell at last after having pittifully stumbled and staggered into the precipice of eternal perdition And would to GOD the Prince of errour did not yet still abuse the world in the same manner Certainly the darkness of the old Paganism was not more gross nor shameful than that which covers the greater part of the earth at this very day But whereas that errour wherein the Devil keepeth men is called by the Apostle the power of darkness and not simply darkness this teacheth us that that accursed one worketh effectually in them doing with their hearts what seemeth Him good and planting all deceit and ignorance in them at his will so as these wretches cannot defend themselves therefrom This is one thing the Apostle teacheth us elsewhere as when he saith that this evil Spirit now worketh with efficacy Eph. 2.3 in the children of rebellion Not that he hath naturally any just Dominion over the souls of men but their sin brings them under His Sceptre and their hearts being of themselves full of unclean and unjust affections it comes to pass through the excess of their corruption that he never tempteth them in vain And all this imperial force he hath upon them is founded meerly on imposture on errour and ignorance so as it is with a deal of truth and elegancy that St. Paul calleth it here the power of darkness This is Faithful Brethren the sad and pittiful estate in which naturally men lye Let not the paint and lustre of their pretended wisdom and justice dazle your eyes In the sight of GOD it is but darkness whence it comes Eph. 5.8 that the Scripture calleth them darkness it self Ye were sometime darkness saith the Apostle to the Ephesians Judge hereby how horrible the errour of those is who dogmatize that liberty is so very natural to man as they cannot conceive that they can be men without it Let them Philosophise upon this subject as they please They shall never be able to shew that a man can be all at once both at liberty and under the power of darkness He that is under the power of another is not free It 's GOD alone that can enfranchise men and take them from this miserable servitude and bind that strong Tyrant who did hold them Captive It is to this Soveraign LORD that the Apostle here giveth the glory both of his own liberty and of the Colossians theirs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He saith he hath delivered us from the power of darkness Yet the Greek word which he useth in the Original hath more Emphasis signifying that He delivered us by an exerting of power drawing us and if I may so speak plucking us out of the irons we were in whereby he representeth to us on the one hand how strong and strait the bonds of our slavery were and on the other hand how excellent and admirable the power is which GOD hath displayed to bring us out of this spiritual Egypt For we experiment it daily that though nothing be more sordid and shameful than the tyranny of error Yet we all naturally love it so
first-born of every creature He simply meaneth that He is the Master of them and not as the hereticks pretend that He is a Creature as they are and only created before them For the reason which St. Paul annexeth taken from His having created them concludeth rightly that He is Master of them but not that He was created Himself Otherwise it must by the same means be said that the Father who created all things was also created Himself a blasphemy which the most shameless hereticks would abhorr For if the Apostles discourse be good and pertinent as all Christians confess thus must His reasoning be Whoever hath created all things the same is the first-born of every creature But the LORD JESUS hath created all things He is therefore the first-born of every creature There you see clearly that this first proposition Whoever hath created all things is the first-born of every creature cannot be true save in this sense that He is the master of every creature but it is evidently false in the sense that the hereticks take the words first-born of every creature that is created before every other creature it being clear that the Father who created all things is eternal and sure was not created It must therefore of necessity be said that the Apostle by the first-born of every creature doth mean their LORD and Master Otherwise His discourse would not be pertinent But having sufficiently justified in our last action and cleared this conclusion of St. Pauls that the Son of GOD is the first-born of every creature let us consider now the reason of it he alledgeth drawn from hence viz. that He created all things and that they are all for Him and all subsist by Him that is to say He is the Author the End and the Conserver of them It is a truth of infinite importance in Christian Religion both of it self and for its own merit as also for the great contradictions it hath suffered at all times from the enemies of the Divinity of JESUS CHRIST both ancient and modern who have put to it all their force that they might either overthrow or at least shake it For this cause we are obliged to examine the present Text wherein it is so statelily founded with so much the more care and that we may omit nothing which is necessary for the clearing of it we will consider in the first place what the Apostle saith of the Son of GOD that All things were created by Him and for Him and that He is before all things and that they all subsist by Him Next we will view in the second place the division he maketh of all these things which the LORD created some they that are in Heaven others they that are in earth some visible others invisible as Thrones Dominions Principalities and Powers These shall be if the LORD will the two parts and as it were the two Articles of this Action May it please GOD to guide us by His Spirit in so sublime a meditation and to enable us by His grace to refer it to His glory and to our own edification and consolation In the former of these two Articles the Apostle as you see saith first that All things were created by JESVS CHRIST secondly that they were all created for Him in the third place that He is before all things and lastly that they all subsist by Him For though these four points be near a kin and necessarily linked the one with the others yet they are distinct at the bottome and ought to come under consideration severally there being neither of them but doth contribute somthing particular to the glory of our great GOD and Saviour JESUS CHRIST The first is plain that All things were created by JESVS CHRIST For where is the Christian who understands not this and knows not that to create doth signifie in the use of Scripture to make a thing either of nothing or of a matter which had no disposedness to the form that it receiveth And forasmuch as there is none but the Divine Power that is capable of such an action or operation thence it comes that this word is never attributed to any but GOD only There 's none but He that doth create things For this cause among the other Titles which are given him for marks of His glory He is stiled The Creator this Title appertaining unto Him alone When the Apostle then saith here and twice repeats it That all things were created by the Son he signifieth that it is of Him they received all the being they have that it is He who by this Noble and Divine manner of working which the Scripture calls Creation brought them from non-being to a being who by His infinite power produced the matter of which they consist prepar'd it and fitted it as it now is investing it with those forms and admirable qualities on which all the motions of their nature do depend that is to say in one word The LORD JESUS is the Creator of the Universe It was not possible to express this truth more clearly And thus it is that all Christians always understood this passage until those new Enemies of the Divinity of our LORD who blasphemously say that He hath no actual subsistence in the world but since His birth of the holy Virgin they not able to bear so respendent a light have endeavoured to obscure it by the fumes of their frivolous and false glosses They say therefore that the word Create signifieth in this place mearly to reform and re-establish things to put them in a better estate than they were in and not to bring them out of nothing and give them their whole being They will have it that the Apostle by saying All things were created by JESVS doth intend not the first Creation of the World when arising out of nothing it receiv'd its natural being and form from the Creator But the Renovation of the World wrought by the Preaching of the Gospel and by the word of the Apostles whom the LORD sent to reform the Nations and to put things in an incomparably better and more happy estate than they were in before Enslav'd they were to the Empire of Sin and Satan whereas by the Doctrine and Power of the LORD JESUS they have now been consecrated to God and sanctified to His glory Unto this I answer That it 's true the World was renewed by the Gospel inasmuch as this holy Doctrine did abolish both the Ceremonies of Moses's Discipline and the false Religions of the Heathen and formed in the whole earth a new people that serve God in Spirit and in Truth being created in righteousness and holiness I acknowledge also that this Renovation is the work of a Divine Power and could not have been effected by any Humane or Angelical strength by reason whereof it may and ought to be called a Creation it being evident that there was need of no less vertue to reform the World than to create it And finally I
which we trust and the Worship we give Him in Spirit and in truth and the Heaven we hope for and the Sacraments we celebrate and all the other Articles of our Religion do they not every where appear in the Books of Paul and of the other Apostles Are they not to be seen in all the Monuments of these great men as well in their Writings as also in the Churches which they planted through the earth Let us therefore my Brethren abide firm in this faith since it most assuredly is the Gospel which was heretofore preached in all the world and was commited to S. Paul's ministring And if those of Rome do alledge to us their Devotions and Traditions let us boldly tell them that if those things were any part of the Gospel they would appear in what the Apostles preached to whom JESUS CHRIST gave the Ministry thereof And in the mean time there is not found any one of them in the Sacred Volumes which they have left us to be the rule of our faith Neither the adoration of the Hoast nor the veneration of Images nor the invocation of Saints departed nor the other points for which they have Excommunicated us And herein their Head doth evidently discover how Apostolical he is to banish those from his Communion whom S. Paul here expresly declares to be at peace with GOD holy and unreprovable before Him For to have this happiness he doth not oblige us to believe or practice this pretended Gospel of Rome He requireth us only abide firm in the belief of his the Gospel which he preached to the faithful and left in his Epistles In them our Religion is to be seen full and whole But not one Article of that which Rome would by all means constrain us to receive But there is no need we should make further stay upon this matter the truth of that Doctrine which we embrace being so clear that no man who understands Christianity and owns the Divinity of it can call it into question And on the other hand the absurdity of the Doctrine we reject is so palpable and so rudely beats against the foundations of Reason and Scripture that it s very difficult for a man who hath had any taste of the Gospel ever to yield up his consent to the errors we contest except GOD have blinded him in punishment of his ingratitude The great combate which we have most cause to fear is that of the passions of our flesh It 's these properly that enfeeble faith that darken its light that hide the truth from its view and paint up error These are the true causes of their change who desert us and of the offence of many that are infirm among us Experience shews it us daily And accordingly you see Matth. 13.21 22. our Saviour hath advertis'd us of it having said in one of His Parables that it is either the fear of persecution or the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches that makes the seed of heaven unfruitful in the hearts of men and obstructs their perseverance And S. Paul somwhere imformeth us 2 Tim. 1.19 that they that reject a good conscience make shipwrack also in respect of faith When a man is once sold over to pleasure or avarice or ambition it is no wonder if in the sequel he disgust the truth and fall into error The passage is easie from the one to the other Besides the slaves of sin not finding the contentation of their passions in the profession of Truth which is for the most part under the cross their interest carries them to seek their satisfaction in the world this gives an huge shake to their minds and brings them by degres to relish the worlds side and party as it is natural to us to believe easily the things we desire Here therefore it is dear Brethren that we must put to our might and fight in good earnest if we would continue firm in the faith Give me a man that embracing JESUS CHRIST hath cast off the lusts of the flesh and of the world and I will be secure of his perseverance Take me away the colours wherewith avarice and ambition and vanity do paint-over error in the thoughts of the worldly-minded and I will not fear its seducing of any Cleanse your Conscience and your Faith will be out of danger The Devil without doubt made use of his best weapons against our LORD and you know that having represented to Him the hunger and the necessity he was in he omitted not to spread before His eyes the pomp of the Grandeurs and riches of the world It is a wile he still puts in practise and his Ministers do not forget this piece of his play they fail not to tell such as they would destroy that they will give them wonders Faithful Brethren let us fence our selves seasonably against this tentation Mortifie we in us all the lusts of Flesh and Earth accustom our selves to a not-dreading the Cross and the sufferings of our LORD suffer not the world to dazle our eyes Look we upon it as a deceitful shew unable to content its own adorers To the false goods wherewith it feedeth its bond-servants let us oppose the true ones which the Gospel promiseth Let the sweet and noble hope of these enflame our souls with an ardent desire of heaven and its immortality Let it sweeten all the bitterness that attends our profession and make execrable to us all that tendeth to turn us away from so blessed a design Courage Christian yet a little patience and you have overcome Your faith if you abide firm in it will open in your heart for the present a living spring of such joy as is a thousand times sweeter than all the pleasures of Worldings And it shall be crowned one day with that supereminent and immortal glory which the Gospel that you have believed doth promise to all those which shall constantly persevere in the Vocation of the LORD JESUS To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit the true and only GOD blessed for ever be all honor and praise to ages of ages Amen THE XIII SERMON COL I. Ver. XXIV Vers XXIV Whereupon I now rejoyce in my sufferings for you and to fill up the remainder of the afflictions of CHRIST in my flesh for His body which is the Church THE Gospel of the LORD JESUS hath many admirable evidences of its divinity and among them the sufferings of its Confessors and Martyrs are in my opinion not the least illustrious For if you seriously consider them you will find that there never was any doctrine in the world that drew more persecutions upon its followers or that inspired them with so much courage and resolution to undergo the same or was in effect sealed with such a deal of blood and patience Other religions as being sprung from the earth are welcome there and the world that well knoweth its own blood and its own spirit shews them kindness and
this blessed light He would have objected the interest of these last generations that they were too far removed from this Sun-shine to make their profit of it Unbelief doth never want pretences It findeth somewhat to reply against all the LORD's procedures And not desiring that they should be just doth easily forge apparences to it self to believe they are not so Let us suffer Him to be wiser than our selves and instead of arguing about the order He hath taken receive it with respect and make our profit of it Let it satisfie us that by His grace we find our selves within the compass of that blessed time in which He hath manifested His secret and make we use with thankfulness of the advantage He hath pleased to give our age above those that have preceded But if you ask me why GOD communicated His Gospel to the Church no sooner tell me also why He giveth not to men and other living creatures the perfection of their kind at the instant of their nativity why lets He them lose so much time in the weaknesses of infancy which might be better employed in more noble actions if they had their vigor and maturity at the beginning of their days Tell me again why He maketh not the plants to grow up to blossom and to bear fruit in a moment and why He formeth families and States so slowly among mankind GOD doth nothing suddainly and would have us understand the maturity of His counsels by the gravity of His motions He hath formed the Church in the same method He would that she should begin to pronounce before she spake distinctly pass through childhood before coming to full age He would that she should learn her rudiments before she heard the highest lessons of His wisdom And haue in one of her times Moses for her School-master in the other JESUS CHRIST for her Doctor as the Apostle sheweth us in the Epistle to the Galatians Since the Gospel is the highest of Her lessons C. 3 4. it was justly reserved for her ripest age But if you press me still and ask me why GOD ordained such a difference between the ages of the Church I will answer you as before with S. Paul that thus He would do You cannot break over this bound without unsetling the whole nature and bringing the justice of all His progresses into contestation it being evident that it was neither more difficult for GOD nor less apparently reasonable to give animals and vegetables their strength and perfection in the first moments of their life then to give the Church the knowledge of His mysteries in the first centuries of her time The other point in this dispensation of GOD which offends our curiosity respecteth the persons to whom He hath manifested His mysterie and sanctified them by this Divine light Why to these hath He done this rather than to those Why to poor Galileans rather than to the Scribes and Priests of Israel The Apostle cutteth the knots of all these questions with one only word saying that He would make it known to them It 's the reason which the LORD Himself alledged for this diversity when having given thanks to the Father for that He had hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes Mat. 11.26 He addeth Even so Father for thus it hath pleased thee And our Apostle treating elsewhere expresly of this matter concludeth that GOD hath mercy on whom He will have mercy Rom. 9.18 and whom He will He hardeneth It 's at this Will that we must stop and not go on vainly seeking for reasons in the persons themselves of the favour GOD hath shewed them it being clear that we shall never find in them any which may give us satisfaction And again hereto must we reduce all the diversities which may be observed in the dispensation of the Gospel as that GOD maketh it to abound in one country and among one people while another is deprived of it that He maketh it to shine upon one generation after having denyed it to another that He communicates it here more liberally and there more sparingly All this dependeth meerly on His good pleasure nor can the things themselves afford us any valuable reason of it But I return to the Apostle who saith that by the revelation of His Gospel GOD hath made known what are the riches of the glory of this mysterie among the Gentiles They that are versed in the reading of this holy man's writings do know that he often useth the word riches Rom. 11.33 to set forth abundance As when he cryeth out Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge and when he speaketh elsewhere of the riches of the grace of the LORD Ephes 1.7 Rom. 2.4 and when he demands of the impenitent if he despise the riches of the goodness of GOD of His patience and long-suffering and so in a multitude of other places It 's in this sense that we must here understand the expression of riches of glory that is to say a great abundance of glory or which amounts to as much a very great and most abundant glory Whereby you see the zeal of this holy man for the praise of the Gospel Inasmuch as he cannot satisfie himself about this subject but heapeth up the most magnifick terms he can think of to represent the excellency of it He calleth it a mysterie and a mysterie of GOD and a mysterie hidden during all the ages that rolled on from the foundation of the world and at length discovered from Heaven in the last time to the Saints of GOD. This is very much and there is no other doctrine either humane or indeed Divine of which so much can be said But it is not enough for S. Paul He adds that it is a glorious mysterie yea contents not himself with this He ascribes to it not glory simply but riches and an abundance of glory And it is not here alone that he doth so He speaks of it every other-where in the same manner as when he saith that unto him this grace was given Eph. 3.7 8. to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of CHRIST and to make all men see what is the communication of the mysterie which from the beginning had been hid in GOD and elsewhere he calls it the glorious ministration of the Spirit 2 Cor. 3.8.18 and the mirrour wherein the face of the LORD is openly beheld And in truth he had good reason For it is particularly in the Gospel that GOD hath made all the beams of His glory to shine out There He manifesteth and communicateth unto men all the marvels of His Power of His Wisdom of His Justice and of His merciful goodness in their greatest altitude and in their richest abundance which are as the substance and essence of this glory The Gospel is His treasury wherein He presents us His most glorious and His Divinest benefits His grace
yea a glorious light that is to say great and sparkling Why then saith he that the treasures of wisdom are hid in Him whereas it seemeth he should say on the contrary that they are manifested in Him that they shine out and appear clearly in Him I answer that the one and the other may be said in divers respects For if you consider the thing in its self the treasures of wisdom are manifested to us in JESUS CHRIST and there is no purifyed Soul but sees them in Him and acknowledgeth them immediately when it views Him as the Gospel represents Him But if you have respect to the eyes and perceptions of men as they naturally are even obscured and corrupted by Sin I confess it 's hard for them to discern in JESUS CHRIST the riches of wisdom and knowledg which the Father hath put in Him and that this proceeds in part from that veil of meanness and infirmity wherewith He is as it were covered all over And this makes S. Paul say elswhere that CHRIST crucified whom He preached was to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness though to the faithful who were called He was the Power and the Wisdom of GOD. Therefore it being necessary for our Salvation that He should be born and live poorly on earth and there suffer in the end the death of the Cross which surpassed all others for cruelty and ignominy the Father who sent Him in this form cloath'd with this sad and shameful mantle that assrighteth men hath both manifested and hidden His treasures in Him He hath manifested them in Him since it is in Him and by Him that He exhibiteth to us whatsoever we ought to know for the attainment of Salvation He hath hidden them in Hun since He hath covered this treasure with such a veil as by its poor and contemptible look discourageth men and makes them say as Isaiah prophecyed He hath no form nor comeliness in Him and when we see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him But they which have their eyes purified by light from on high do discern under this appearing simplicity and humility all coelestial riches in their stateliest and most glorious form This is the Apostle's meaning here when he saith that these treasures are hid in CHRIST He advertiseth us that we must not stop at that infirmity and emptiness which appeareth at first sight in Him and disgusteth vain and earthly spirits but look within and contemplate the great wonders which GOD hath there manifested for our compleat instruction and consolation Hitherto we have examin'd the words of this Text. It remaineth that we now consider the truth in it We shall do it but summarily For the prosecution of this rich subject in its whole extent is above the ability of Man or Angel to be worthily performed so great is the heighth and depth of it But we will briefly touch its chief heads Mans true wisdom in his present state is to know His misery with the means to escape it and his felicity with the way that he must take to attain it As for our misery nature indeed hath given us some perception of it there being scarce a man in the world who sees not some depravation and irregularity in himself and whose conscience doth not reproach him with his faults and threaten the judgment of a supream justice The Law hath taught us much more of it representing GOD unto us as armed with inexorable severity against sinners and fulminating his curse upon them But beside that these knowledges are weak and are easily smothered in security there is this sorrow with them that having shewed us our misery they do not inform us of the remedy so as if they be necessary to draw us out of that folly wherein the most are plunged who confidently sleep amid the tempest and presume they are well while they have a mortal impostume in their brain or in their bowels yet it cannot be said that they suffice to make us wise seeing that for the just possession of this title a man must know not only his malady but also the means to cure it And yet though we knew it too nevertheless this would not be sufficient because besides deliverance from evil we desire also the fruition of good yea the chief Good But neither the light of nature nor even the light of the Law does reveal to us what this supream felicity is which without distinct knowing it we do desire so far are they from shewing us the way to it But in JESUS CHRIST as proposed to us in the Gospel these Verities that are necessary to render us wise are found clearly and fully all of them For as to our misery He declareth it exactly to us not by some surd and inarticulate sounds as nature doth nor by circuitions and essaies as the Law did but by the fullest and most moving way of information that ever was in the world even crying aloud to us from that Cross to which our sins had nailed Him Behold ye sons of men how horrid your crimes are since that it was necessary for the washing them away that I should come down from the Heavens shed forth my blood Behold how great irreparable your fall was since there was none in heaven or earth that could raise you up again but my self As much as the life of the Son of GOD is more precious than the life of all mankind so much clearer is the proof which his death giveth us of the horror of sin than that which we might take from the death of all that ever sinned though we should we see them stricken down together and punished by the avenging justice of GOD. But if this great Saviour do make us so feelingly perceive the horridness of our misery his end is only to make us the more ardently desire and embrace the remedy which he offereth us fully prepared from that same Cross to which he He was fastned for us I grant that the forbearance and kindness of GOD in his conduct of men though sinful might give them some sparkle of hope and his promises under the old Covenant had highly confirm'd it betimes But the Sword of his Justice dreadfully flaming in the hand of the Law perplexed them not a little and it was very difficult for them to accord His inflexible righteousness with the mercy that was necessary for them JESUS CHRIST hath removed all these difficulties and exhibiteth unto us in his Cross the solution of all our doubts Fear nothing sinner I saith he have contented the Justice of God and satisfied his Law Boldly trust his promises and approach his Throne with full assurance This blood which hath opened to you the entrance thither is not the blood of a beast nor an earthly ransome it is the blood of GOD a ransome of infinite value more than sufficient to take away your sins how infinite soever the demerit of them be But you will say This
that is necessary for you Let your whole life be taken up in the continual handling of these Divine Jewels in admiring the beauty and using the brightness of them Let it be all the passion of your souls the matter of your joys and the consolation of your troubles If you have not those false good things which the world so much glorieth in remember that you have the treasures of Heaven the portion of Angels the wisdom and knowledg of happiness Take heed that none bereave you of so rich a possession Shut your ear against the prattle and plausible discoursings of Seducers Conserve this treasure couragiously against their attempts nor be content to have it only communicate it to your neighbours lay forth the wonders of it before their eyes adorning all the parts of your life with it Let the innocency and sanctity and sweetness and humility of the LORD JESUS shine out in it Let these be your Pearls and your Jewels and your Ornaments before men which may constrain them to acknowledg that JESUS CHRIST dwells in the midst of you and to say Of a truth this Nation is a wise and understanding people Above all instruct your Children in this knowledg Leave them this wisdom for an inheritance Such a portion is enough to make them happy whereas without this they cannot possibly be other than fools and wretches though you should leave them all the wealth of the East and West Finally since the Apostle assureth us that all the treasures of wisdom are in JESUS CHRIST let us content our selves with him alone and centemn the vanity of those who under any pretence whatsoever would make pass for wisdom doctrines that are forreign and without the sphere of CHRIST Let us not so much as give them the hearing It 's warrant enough for us to reject them that they make up no part of the treasure of JESUS CHRIST I stand not to enquire whether they be true or false helpful or hurtful It sufficeth me that whatever they be otherways they are not in CHRIST Nothing is to be received in Religion but what comes out of this treasury GOD who hath given it us in his abundant mercy and who calleth us to partake also of it the LORD's day next grant us to conserve it pure and entire to possess it with joy and respect in this world and reap the full fruit of it in that which is to come So be it THE EIGHTEENTH SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER IV V. Ver. IV. But this I say that none may deceive you by words of perswasion V. For though I am absent in body yet in spirit I am with you rejoycing and seeing your order and the firmness of your faith which you have in CHRIST AS men do not naturally love and desire but things which have an appearance of good so they believe none but those that have a semblance of truth and they lay down love of the one and belief of the others as soon as they certainly discover that the former are evil and the latter untrue Whence it comes that being prepossessed upon some general and confused knowledg with conceit that the enjoyment or belief of a thing would be profitable and advantageous to them they wish it prove good and true evidently presupposing that otherwise their very nature could not permit them to love it or believe it This is to be seen in children themselves who are the sincerest and most natural map of the motions of our nature For when their Nurses tell them any thing they ask if it be true and if the tale please them they are troubled when they perceive it is but a tale and would have it true that they might believe it So deeply imprinted in the mind of all reasonable Creatures is this sacred and inviolable principle of their nature that nothing is to be believed but what is true This advantage which truth naturally hath over falshood doth enforce its very enemies to counterfeit its mark and wear its livery they being sensible that their errors and falshoods can have no passage among men except they go under the appearance of some truth Even as Coiners that they may put off their Copper and Lead do give it the colour and resemblance of Gold and Silver and counterfeit the image and stamp of a lawful Prince or as they that would travel through an enemy's Countrey do privily accommodate themselves with the enemy's badges so Seducers well knowing that the understanding of man is the proper and lawful Kingdom of truth where nothing passes but under the avouching and marks of the same do fard and disguise the fictions which they would put off and give them as finely as they can the countenance and colour of truth that by the means of this false resemblance they may pass currant among men who would reject them immediately if they saw them in their own natural likeness There hath ever been a great number of these cheats in the world a multitude of persons being every where found who pricked forward by ambition or some other particular interest do strive to bring their fancies and dreams into reputation But as Christian Religion compriseth the best and most important Verities in the world so there never was any profession that Error and Imposture have more laboured to corrupt both by decrying some of its true doctrines on one hand and by intermingling of falshoods on the other And as all the artifice of such unhappy wits tendeth only to confound truth and lies so ought we to employ the utmost of our industry that we may effectually sever them and so discern them as we never take the one for the other This discerning dear Brethren is one of the most important duties of our life It is loss I confess to take Copper for Gold and bad money for good and it is moreover ignorance ever shameful sometimes not a little hurtful to receive an error for truth in Philosophy and in civil life But yet the loss and shame that accrues from all this kind of cheats reacheth no further than the present time whereas the consequents of those impostures which we suffer in Religion do extend even to eternity For this cause the holy Apostle often warneth the faithful Rom. 16.17 1 Thes 5.21 Eph. 4.14 Heb. 5.14 to whom he writeth to beware of them and to try all things with a great deal of care that they may not be inveigled by seducers nor take up their traditions for truths willing every sound and thorough Christian to have his senses exercised and habituated to discern between good and evil You may have observed in the Text we have read that this is the happiness which he wisheth and would procure to the Colossians keeping them from being drawn in by the fair speeches of those seducers that courted them He had afore represented to them at large the abundance and excellency of the benefits of their LORD and Saviour and he protested again in the
worship was gross and terrene and in some sort worldly in comparison of that of the new Isreal whom the LORD formed to worship GOD in spirit and in truth Whence it comes that he calls all the knowledg of the Jewish Rabbies 1 Cor. 2.6 8. the wisdom of this generation and those Rabbies themselves the Princes of this generation that is of this world Thus how hoary-headed and venerable soever the age of these rudiments of the world was the Apostle would not that the faithful should susser themselves to be taken under that pretence by those seducers that advanced the observation of them Behold what were those three colours wherewith these men be-painted their Doctrine The vain speculations of Philosophy The antiquity of Tradition and The authority of the Mosaical Ceremonies To which the Apostle adds and not after CHRIST By these very few words as with one blow he beateth down all the speciousness of these strange Doctrines Let men trick them up saith he as much as they will let them colour them with the subtilities of Philosophy let the practise of them be authorized by Tradition let them be recommended under the name of Moses and by the respect we owe to the rudiments of the former world all this hinders not but that we ought to despise them not only as unprofitable but even as dangerous since they are not after CHRIST He saith they are not after CHRIST First Because the LORD JESUS hath told us nothing of them in his Gospel whence it appears that we have good ground to reject from our belief all that is not found in the Scriptures of the New-Testament Secondly Because the Doctrine of JESUS CHRIST is wholly spiritual and celestial whereas those traditions and legal observations were gross and carnal And lastly Because besides their having no correspondency with the nature of the Gospel they do turn men aside from the LORD JESUS causing them to seek some part of their salvation otherwhere than in Him in whom it is so entirely seated as not the least drop of it is to be had in any other And what shew soever such as follow these Traditions do make of being resolv'd to retain JESUS CHRIST experience lets us see that they do but very slightly stick to him busying themselves wholly in the performance of their own devotions and placing the greatest part of their confidence in the same which comes from hence even that these are more grateful to them both for their novelty and for their being voluntary and indeed of less difficulty it being much easier to the flesh to acquit it self of some external and corporeal observances than to embrace JESUS CHRIST with a lively faith dying to the world and living unto him alone Thus you see what we had to say to you upon this advertisement of the Apostle's It is addressed to you also dear Brethren since you have adversaries who sollicite your belief in the same manner as those men did at first combat the faith of the Colossians They propose unto you the same errors and paint and gild them over after the same method with the vain colours of Philosophy with the plausible name of Tradition with the authority of Moses They are either Doctrines drawn forth from the speculations of Philosophers as the invocation of Angels and of Saints departed the veneration of Images the estate of souls in Purgatory and such like or humane Traditions as prayer for the dead Quadragesimal observances the Hierarchy the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome Monkery Single-life and others all crected by men without any foundation in the word of GOD. Or lastly they are Elements of the world ceremonial observances sometime instituted by Moses but abolished by JESUS CHRIST as the distinction of Meats Festivals Unctions Consecrations Sacrifice Fixation unto certain places and of all that we reject in our Doctrine there is not a particular but referrs to one of these three heads Remember therefore when they set upon you that the Apostle still to this day calls aloud from Heaven to you Take heed that none do make booty of you by Philosophy and vain deception after the tradition of men after the rudiments of the world and not after CHRIST Under these fair appearances there is hidden a pernicious design Men would take you away from JESUS CHRIST and make you a prey to and the Vassals of men Oppose to all their Artifices this one saying of the Apostle's That whatever the things which are enjoined you may be they are not after CHRIST they are not found in that Testament wherein he hath declar'd his whole will they have no conformity with the nature of his Gospel and do turn away the minds of men from that Soveraign LORD in whom alone is our wisdom and our righteousness our sanctification and redemption But Faithful Brethren as the Apostle's lesson should defend you from error so should it preserve you from vice Let that JESUS whom he so assiduously preacheth to you sill up your manners as well as your faith Love none but him as you believe in none but him Renounce the customs and vices of the world as well as its Religion Let the leaven of Philosophy have no more place in your actions than in your belief Receive the manners of men into your communion no more than the traditions of men If you be above the rudiments of the world be also above its infancy and its low and childish passions and affections they were sometimes pardonable in that childhood but are inexcusable in persons whom JESUS CHRIST hath advanced unto perfect men and such as by his illumination he hath brought unâ—â—fulness and maturity of age Let your souls henceforth have thoughts and aâ—â—ctions noble and heavenly and worthy of those high instructions which JESUS CHRIST hath given you Let your whole life be referr'd to him passing by the world and its elements this present generation and its lusts and idols with which the LORD JESUS doth not participate in any thing He hath crucified all those things for us and displayed before our eyes a new world brought forth out of the bosome of Eternity a world incorruptible and radiant with such glory as can neither be sullied or made to fade 'T is hither Faithful Brethren that you should elevate your desires This same is true Christian Discipline to dye with JESUS to this old world having no more sentiment or passion for its perishing-benefits and to live again with the same JESUS in that new world whereinto he is entred for us to breathe after nothing but its glory to think of nothing but its purity to rejoyce in nothing but in its peace and in the hope of its eternal pleasures To forgo for ever that which is passed and to tend with all our might towards the mark and price of our supernal calling justifying the verity of our Religion by the sanctity of our conversation so as there appear no more among us either ambition or hatred
circumcision we have that truth and fulness in JESUS CHRIST whereof it had but some part shadow'd out by its figure If the matter be the Sacrament it self the LORD hath given us one highly excelling to wit Baptism So as which way soever it be taken there is no reason at all that any man should desire still to retain circumcision But to proceed it is not here only that the Apostle attributes so great an effect unto Baptism He speaks thus of it constantly as for example when he saith that CHRIST sanctifieth the Church Eph. 5.26 Gal. 3.7 cleansing it with the washing of water by the word and elsewhere that we all who were baptized have put on CHRIST and in another place again 1 Cor. 12.13 that we have all been baptized into one spirit to be one body For the Sacraments of CHRIST are not vain and hollow pictures wherein the benefits of his death and resurrection are nakedly pourtray'd as in a piece of Art that feeds us barely with an unprofitable view of what it represents They are effectual means which He accompanieth with his virtue and filleth with his grace effectively accomplishing those things in us by his heavenly power which are set before us in the Sacrament when we receive it as we ought He inwardly nourisheth by the virtue of his flesh and blood the soul of him that duly takes his Bread and his Cup. He washeth and regenerateth that man within who is rightly consecrated by Baptism And if the infirmity of age do hinder that the effect does not at the instant appear in Infants baptized yet his virtue doth not fail to accompany his institution and conserve its self in them and bring forth its fruits upon them in their season when their nature is capable of the operations of understanding and will Heretofore in the primitive Church this double effect of Baptism was more clearly represented in the external action of the Sacrament than it is at this day For the greater part of those that were baptized being persons of age who came over to Christianity from Judaism or Paganism they were uncloth'd and then plunged into the water whence they immediately came forth and so were baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost whereby they testifi'd that they did put off the body of sin the habit of the first Adam and buried it in the saving-waters of JESUS CHRIST as in its mystical grave and came forth thence risen up to a new life for a symbol whereof they took up a white habit and wore it an whole week Now though the water wherewith we baptize doth not carry so express a figure of this mystical Sepul cher and Resurrection as that of the Ancients did since this ceremony cannot be practis'd towards Infants without very great inconvenience and even danger of their lives in so tender an age and especially in such cold Countreys as ours nevertheless the virtue of holy Baptism is still the same that JESUS whom in it we did put on communicating to us by the virtue of his Spirit the mystical image of his Burial and Resurrection that is as we have shewed the annihilation of the old man and creation of the new If we meet with any baptized persons as there are but too many such in whom the old man is so far from being buried that he lives and reigns with absolute power and the new man hath neither life nor action at all it may not be imputed unto JESUS CHRIST who always accompanieth his Sacraments with his saving virtue but unto the persons own unbelief who doth wretchedly repell the operationof the grace of CHRIST and deprive it of all the effect which it would have assurâ—dly produced in them if their unworthiness had not frustrated its efficacy towards them For I acknowledg that neither Baptism nor the Word do work in any but such as receive them with faith And in this as in all other things the admirable wisdom of our LORD doth appear For the subject being Man a reasonable Creature he dealeth with him in a way proper and suitable to his nature The means he useth for his salvation do not operate in him as drugs and simples by a Physical action and such as takes its effect whatever otherwise be the mind of the man that takes them But the operation of the Word and Sacraments doth depend upon the preparation of their hearts to whom they are administred They work when they are receiv'd with faith they produce nothing when they are receiv'd with unbelief And thus it is meet that the understanding which is the Guide and Ruler of all our moral actions be first perswaded of the truth of GOD and then our wills and affections take impression and be changed by the efficacy of his power This very thing the Apostle here doth shew us with much clearness by adding besides Baptism that we are buried and raised again with CHRIST by faith an evident token that the Sacrament doth mortifie sin in us and raise us up unto sanctity according to the faith it meets with in us It left the heart of Simon Magus in the bonds of iniquity and in the gall of bitterness because it found in it no faith at all but a naughtiness hardned in unbelief and full of Hypocrisie But as for Lydia and all those that have a true faith it doth assuredly mortifie sin in them and makes the new man live in them unto righteousness and holiness For it is not possible but that the person who is firmly perswaded of the truth of the Gospel should renounce sin the venom and horror whereof this Divine Doctrine doth so clearly discover and on the contrary embrace that holiness whose beauty and blessedness it doth so magnificently set before us man naturally flying from what he believes mortal and pernicioâ—s to him and adâ—ering with like necessity to what he judgeth healthful and advantageous But the Apostle who does every where exalt the grace of GOD and cast down the 〈◊〉 of man lest any one should imagine that this â—â—â—th upon which 〈…〉 doth depend were a production of our own will doth by the way advertise us that it is a gift of our LORD's when he nameth it the faith of the efficacy or of the operation of GOD that is to say which the efficacy of his hand produceth in us Whereby their error is refuted who hold that GOD for the producing of faith in us doth meerly set before us either outwardly by his Word or inwardly by his Spirit the object of truth leaving it to the liberty of our will to believe it or reject it By this account faith should not be the faith of the efficacy of GOD since that according to this supposition he should exert none at all upon us But the Apostle stileth it the faith of the efficacy or operation of GOD. We must conclude therefore that for the giving of us faith he operateth in
us powerfully forming our hearts and opening them by the might of his Spirit that they may receive his truth yea that he doth imprint and engrave it on them himself by a most efficacious action The term Energy for such is the Original and 't is that which we have render'd efficacy deserves great consideration properly signifying in the stile of the Book of GOD a powerful operation which surely accomplisheth its design and infallibly produceth its intention such as is the action by which GOD created the World an evident sign that the operation by which he produceth faith in us is so strong as that it bears down all contradiction so as none of those upon whom he vouchsafes to put it forth can resist it or hinder their understanding from believing The Apostle addeth that GOD hath raised JESUS CHRIST from the dead either to determine the object of our faith which is principally JESUS raised from the dead by the glory of the Father or which I think to be more pertinent to compare our mystical Resurrection with JESUS CHRIST's For seeing it is GOD who by his efficacious action giveth us that faith by which we rise again in CHRIST and seeing it is He again who hath raised our LORD from the dead it is evident that both the one and the other of these two works hath the self-same principle to wit the Almighty Power of GOD. Christians judg with what Power He worketh in his faithful ones since that he exerteth the same virtue to give them faith by which he raised his own Son from the dead as the Apostle informeth us yet more clearly in another place Eph. 1.10 20. where he prayeth that we may know what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe according to the working of his mighty power which he shewed in CHRIST when he raised him from the dead Neither let his saying that the Father raised him disquiet you as if this did cross the Scripture's asserting elsewhere that the LORD JESUS himself rais'd up the Temple of his Body when the Jews had overthrown it Joh. 2.19 It is true that he raised up himself but since his Power is the Power of the Father as being one only and the same GOD with him 't is evident it may be truly said that the Father raised him up the working of one of these two Persons being the working of the other as our Saviour declareth in S. John Joh. 5.19 that whatsoever the Father doth the Son doth in like manner also Whence it comes that the Scripture attributes the Creation of the world indifferently to the one and to the other Dear Brethren This is that which the holy Apostle the great Minister of GOD doth tell us in this Text. Oh how happy should we be if we had these Divine Instructions written in the bottom of our hearts and engraven in Capital Letters upon all the parts of our lives If our actions did justifie as our words profess That we are buried and risen again with JESUS CHRIST by Baptism and by the faith of the operation of GOD who raised him from the dead But alas it must be confessed to our shame there appears in the lives of most of us no print of the burial and least of all of the resurrection of JESUS The flesh lives and exerciseth as horrible tyranny in them as it doth in the lives of the men of the world It hath all its sentiments and all its motions at liberty The new man that breathes nothing but Heaven and loves nothing but Holiness hath no place in them it is so far from reigning there that it 's banish'd thence and acts no more than a dead body fast shut up in the grave Yet if nothing depended on the matter save our shame impudency would bear it out But the worst is our salvation and our eternal damnation doth depend upon it for JESUS CHRIST saves none but his Members such as are made conform to him and have been buried and raised again with him Awake we therefore from this mortal Lethargy which hath benummed our senses to this day Labour we day and night in prayer with sighs and tears and not cease until we feel the old man dye and the new live in our hearts As for the former both Nature and Experience do sufficiently shew us the extravagancy of its desires and the vanity of all its motions For I beseech you what profit does the flesh receivâ— from all the trouble that either its self takes or that it gives to others What benefit hath it from the turmoiling of its avarice or the burning of its ambition or the shamefulness of its pleasures or the sweetness of its revenges It torments its self it toils its self it embraceth wind and smoak and then perisheth oftentimes shortning its own duration by the violence of its agitations It hath but a little body which daily weakens to lodg and seâ—d and clothe for some years yet it travels and disquiets its self as much as if it had a million to maintain for the space of many ages Was there ever a greater folly Certainly should a man of composed mind behold our busie employments in the earth with the motives and designs of so many motions and troubles as we consume our selves in I make little question but he would take well-nigh all men for frantick or foolish and cry out not simply with the Wise man Vanity of vanities all is vanity but yet louder and in a tone more tragical O madness O phrensie All the World is but a company of sensâ—ess men But the seeing of the vanity of the flesh is not sufficient for the conceiving of a due horror at it Christian enter into the Sepulcher of your Saviour and you shall perceive there that besides vanity the life of the old man is all full of venom and wretchedness This sacred Body which you see lying in that Tomb in so pitiful an estate was pierced with nails potion'd with gall crowned with thorns cover'd with the reproach of men and the curse of GOD separated from its Soul and brought down to the dust to divert from you the punishments justly prepared for the disorders of your flesh Think what Hells it deserved since it was necessary that the LORD of Glory should suffer such strange usage to redeem it from them Having once discerned by such sensible evidences the vanity and malignity of the old man and the perdition into which he leads his Vassals how can you have the heart to let him live within you Beloved Brethren crucifie him and out him of the world He is unworthy to live Pierce him through with the thorns and nails of your JESUS Give him his gall to drink Put him to death with him and bury him in his Sepulcher to come forth no more Let his Avarice and Ambitions and all his Concupiscences remain eternally extinct in the dust of that salvifique grave that there appear no more
two things namely first the corruption of a nature destitute of all just and rational apprehensions and motions and secondly the guilt of sin and an obligâ—tion to eternal punishment In like manner that life to which GOD calleth us by his grace doth consist in two particulars first a restauration of His Image in us by the infusion of principles and faculties of true life and secondly the remission of our sins The Apostle here doth briefly speak of them both of the first in saying that GOD hath quickned us together with CHRIST of the second in adding that he hath freely pardoned us all our sins For the first GOD hath quickned us in that delivering us from the death we were under he hath put into us by the grace of his Spirit the principles of an heavenly life and formed in our breasts new hearts hearts illuminated with a new light to wit the good knowledg of his Truth and of the mysteries of his will Then in the second place by the virtue of this Divine flame he enkindleth in our souls the love of his most excellent Majesty charity towards our neighbour uâ—â—ection for just and honest things zeal for his glory abhorrence and hatred of sin and in a word sanctification and all the virtues which it comprehendeth that are the sproutings and productions of this second celestial and happy life which in his great mercy he conferreth on us From this new nature as from a blessed root do issue good and holy actions prayer worshipping of GOD frequent meditation and reading of his word extasies of love to him travels for his glory sufferings for his Name sake relieving instructing assisting of our Neighbour and such others that are as it were the flowers and fruits in the production whereof that life which GOD hath given us in his Son doth properly consist It 's the same thing that the Apostle elsewhere compriseth in few words saying Eph. 2.10 and 4.24 that we are the workmanship of GOD being created in JESVS CHRIST unto good works which GOD hath prepared that we should walk in them And again in another place that our new man that is the second nature which he formeth in us when he quickneth us by his grace is created after GOD in true righteousness and holiness The holy Spirit being rich and magnificent in its expressions doth explain this admirable and blessed operation of the grace of GOD in us by divers terms taken from different resemblances but all amounting to the same sense For to set it forth it saith not only as here that GOD hath quickned us but also Eph. 2.10 1 Pet. 1.3 Ezek. 36.26 Jer. 31.33 Rom. 11 23. Col. 1.13 1 Cor 3.6 Acts 16.4 Phil. 2.13 that He hath created us and in another place that He hath begotten us again the same is meant when it saith that GOD taketh out of us our hearts of stone and gives us hearts of flesh in which he writes his laws that He reneweth us and formeth us into new creatures or new men that He graffeth us by his power into the true olive that He translateth us out of the kingdom of darkness into his marvellous light that it 's He who giveth encrease the Ministers of the Word being nothing that He openeth our hearts and worketh in us effectually both to will and to do of his good pleasure and other like phrases which are found here and there in the Scriptures But the Apostle addeth here that GOD hath thus quickned us together with CHRIST shewing us by these words the cause and the manner of our vivisication namely that it was effected in JESUS CHRIST and with Him and by Him For as that death which we heretofore bore in our selves doth come from Adam the stock and original of our carnal beeing who by destroying himself destroyed us also with him and corrupting his own nature corrupted ours likewise so as it is in him and from him that we inherit this misery in like manner on the contrary that life which we have now receiv'd from GOD doth come from JESUS CHRIST the stock and root of the new nature who raising up himself unto life raised us up also according to what the Apostle saith elsewhere viz. that as all dye in Adam so likewise in JESVS CHRIST are all made alive But this assertion of his here that GOD hath quickned us together with CHRIST 1 Cor. 15.22 doth particularly refer to his resurrection as if GOD in restoring him to that glorious life which he receiv'd at his issuing out of the Sepulcher had at the same time given us also part therein And he speaks in this manner for two reasons principally The first is because it was then that JESUS CHRIST brought to light that blessed life whereof we have been made partakers and from him as from its source hath it been derived unto us so as that same time was the day of our new birth as well as his For if he had not been made alive no more should we have ever been Not but that the Father all had the might and power that was necessary to give us life again But his Justice could not have suffer'd him to give life to any of the sons of men if their Surety and Mediator had abode under death The second reason is That he being our Head and we his Members he our Pattern and we Copies drawn if I may so say from his Original when GOD raised him he re-enliven'd us also by the same means since by this action he obliged himself to vivifie us likewise it being evident that without this we should not have that conformity with our Head to which he predestinated us Not to mention for the present the efficacy this Resurrection hath to form in us faith and hope and love of glorious immortality which are the principles of that new life that GOD doth put into us by his Spirit as we intimated in the exposition of the precedent Verse There remains now the other part of this blessed life which GOD giveth us in his Son namely the remission of our sins S. Paul sets it before us here when he saith that GOD hath freely pardoned us all our sins For the Spirit of Sanctification which is as the soul of that new life he createth in our hearts doth indeed turn away our affections from vice and obstruct our committing of unjust ungodly and impure actions wherein we wallowed afore Yet this respecteth only the present and the future and if there were no more the guilt of sins committed in time past during our spiritual deadness would nevertheless remain in its strength it being clear that though the act of sin be past the faultiness wherewith it commaculates him who committeth it goes not off so soon It subsists still both in the conscience of the sinner if he have any and in the registers of the Justice of the Supream Judg of the World binding over the sinner unto punishment Whence it follows
and Powers These are the Enemies whom the LORD JESUS hath overcome and utterly defeated on the Cross as himself reported the evening before his passion saying that the Prince of this world was then judged that is was about to be condemned And S. Paul elsewhere saith Heb. 2 1â— that JESVS hath by his death destroyed him that had the power of death to wit the Devil Let us now see how our Saviour hath spoiled these Principalities and Powers and publickly made a shew of them triumphing over them on the Cross First It is evident that all this language of the Apostle's is figurative and taken from what great Captains that had been victorious over their Enemies were heretofore wont to do For after they had spoiled them not only Arms Habits Jewels and Baggage but also of their Estates and all their Glory they led them away prisoners and made a shew of them to their Countrey-men on the day of their triumph This name the Romans gave to the pomps of that entry which their Captains and Generals of a Victorious Army made into their City For when any of them had won a Battel taken Towns conquer'd Countreys or done any great and notable exploit of warr one of the principal and most prized Honours that were decreed him for a reward of his valour was a Triumphâ— which was acted with incredible pomp and ceremony The Conqueror was mounted on a stately Chariot magnificently cloth'd and crowned His whole Army marched before and after him in Military order every Troop under its Ensigns and Colours The heads and principal of the Enemies followed his Chariot bound and in chains There was carried along all the Gold and Silver and other Treasures he had won from the Enemy The Towns he had taken the Rivers he had pass'd the Provinces he had subdued the Battels he had given were represented in Picture and exposed to the view of the people who with great festivity and rejoycing accompanied in throng or beheld him from the windows of their houses and filled the air with their acclamations and applauses He entred Rome in this â—quipage and passing through the fairest Streets of the City ascended the Capitol the chief of their Temples where he betook himself to offer sacrifice after he had thus displayed the fruits of his Victories before the eyes of all thâ— world and received all kind of benedictions and praises from his fellow Citizens This is properly that which was called a Triumph The Apostle therefore fetching his terms from this custom which was well known at that time and familiar to every one doth apply them to our LORD and Saviour because of that resemblance we find between the pomp of his mystical victory and this Triumph of Sâ—cular Rulers and Captains He tells us that he hath spoiled these hostile Principalities and Powers He saith that he hath publickly made a shew of them In fine he affirms that he hath triumphed on the Cross expressions all of them manifestly taken as you see from that glorious pomp of the Roman Triumphs which we have now described and which for substance do signifie no other thing but that JESUS dying on the Cross hath fully vanquish'd and defeated the Devil with all his power in the view of Heaven and Earth In prosecution hereof we are to refute the false expositions which some do give of this passage Themas Loranus Cajetan and after that render you an account of the true Some of the famousest Interpreters of the Church of Rome do understand it of the deliverance of the Fathers whom our Saviour as those men say took out of that Limbus in which their spirits were and led them to Heaven with them He spoiled principalities and powers that is the Devils from whom he took away what they kept in Hell forasmuch say they as he caused Adam Noah Abraham Isaac and Jacob with the rest of the faithful who deceased under the Old Testament to come forth from their Limbus which is one of the partitions of the infernâ—l Region Then they say he led them carrying them up to Heaven and giving them entrance into Jerusalem on high whence they had been until then excluded And he made them triumph in himself for so the same Authors do read the Apostle's words that is He made them to participate of his triumph in that they had the honour to accompany and enter into Heaven with him But scarce can a thing be uttered more false more forced and more impertinent than this whole interpretation First That which it supposeth of the abode of the spirits of the old believers in a subterraneous and infernal Limbus is uncertain and fabulous being sounded only upon the tradition of men and not on any authority of the word of GOD. As for that which they commonly alledg to prove it namely Gen. 37.35 Jacob's saying that he would go down into Hell unto his Son Joseph they that are versed in Scripture do well know the word Inferi or Hell in that place in particular and almost every other where in the Book of GOD doth signifie the Grave Whence it comes that the same Patriarch saith elsewhere unto his sons that if any evil befel Benjamin they would make his white hairs descend with sorrow ad inferos to Hell as divers read it where it is clear that by the same word he means the Grave into which the dead go down with their hairs and not Limbus into which only souls descended who have no hair sure And as to what they produce of the pretended soul of Samuel call'd up from Hell by the Sorceress her charms where is the Christian that doth not burn to see such power granted the Ministers of Devils over the Spirits of Prophets God forbid we should credit so gross an absurdity That which the Enchantress saw came from Hell I confess but that which she saw was not in truth the soul of Samuel which was at rest with GOD in Ahraham's bosome It was nothing but a vain shadow and a phantasm of that Prophet called by his name because of its resembling him as the greatest part of the ancient Fathers did affirm and as some of the most famous Authors Leo Allatius in Euctath Antiâ—ch Psal 68.19 even of the Roman Communion do at this day hold They again do abuse what the Psalmist singeth of the Messiah Thou art gone up on high thou hast taken or led a multitude of captives as it s rendred These captives they will have to be the spirits of the Fathers But it is manifest to all that have the least knowledg in the holy Tongue that the phrase there used by the Prophet doth signifie to take or to make prisoners not to free them and to lead not into liberty but into captivity So as if this passage be meant of the Fathers we must say not that the LORD brought them out prison as is suppos'd but that he put them in a thing that would be infinitely
universal and eternal and that no Age nor Climat can dispense with men for them or exempt the Violaters of them from that righteous curse they threaten let us faithfully obey this holy and sacred order which the Apostle hath given Hearken we not to the vain glosses and frivolous distinctions by which humane subtilty endeavours to elude it and colour over its own abuses Observe we sincerely what this great Minister of JESUS CHRIST enjoyneth us He forbiddeth us to Worship Angels in point of Religion There is no reason that either the eloquence or the subtilty either the splendor or the power of men much less their pleasure and usurped domineering should have more efficacy upon us than this Heavenly Authothority And praised be GOD for that He hath given us the courage to obey His Apostle in this particular and to put away the Worshipping of Angels and men from among us notwithstanding the strong contradiction of flesh and blood Let us abide firm in this resolution Let us adore none but GOD since there is none adorable but He. It 's just that He alone should be served among us since it is He alone who hath created and redeemed us But Beloved remember I beseech you that rightly to render Him His due glory it is not sufficient to have renounced the errour of those ancient Phrygians whom the Apostle here opposeth and of our Adversaries of Rome to wit the adoration of Angels and men departed There must also be banishing of all strange service all Idolizing of any thing whatever For if GOD cannot suffer those who serve Angels and deceased Saints that is the most excellent natures that be and such as have the image of the Deity most clearly resplendent in them how much less will He endure those that adore Gold and Silver the excrements of the earth or their own belly the shamefullest and most infamous of all idols or the flesh which is but a vain and perishing figure or the grandeurs of the world which are but exhalations And we that have renounced the first fort of these false services how can we be excusable if we retain and exercise the second Now would to GOD we were as free from the one as we are from the other But it must be confessed to our shame these latter kind of Idols have still a great many Devoto's and Servitors among us That avarice which S. Paul calls an Idolatry is but too much exercised among us the flesh and vanity are here publickly served Wretched men where is your judgement You do not serve the Angels of Heaven and you serve the mettals of the earth You do not adore Spirits made perfect and you do adore profane flesh Neither the light of the Sun nor the brightness of the Moon hath been able to seduce your hearts and you have suffered your selves to be seduced by the glittering of Gold and Silver the false Sol and Luna of the Chymists You have put your hope in Gold and said unto fine Gold Thou art my confidence You that have disdained to put your confidence in Saints The belly with shame and horrour do I utter it the belly is your GOD yours who have made this glorious promise to have none but the Eternal only for your GOD How can you hope that the LORD should suffer you to give Him such Monsters for companions He who is so jealous of His glory that He cannot suffer the Angels themselves to be associated with Him Dear Brethren I pray let us deceive our selves no longer Let us once for all put clean away all these false services and exterminating every Idol from among us adore and serve none but GOD alone Let Him have the entire possession of our whole hearts let Him reign and exercise an absolue dominion in them governing all the sentiments and motions of them at His will that after having constantly adored Him in Spirit and in truth we may one day receive from His holy faithful hand the Crown of Glory and Eternity which He hath purchased for us by the merit of His only Son our LORD JESUS CHRIST To whom with Him and the Holy Spirit the true and only GOD blessed for ever be honour and praise unto Ages of Ages Amen THE XXIX SERMON COL II. Vers XVIII XIX Vers XVIII Let no man Master it over you at his pleasure by humility of Spirit and the service of Angels intruding into things he hath not seen beeing rashly puffed up with the sense of his flesh XIX And not holding the head from which the whole body being furnished and fitly knit together by joints and bands encreaseth with the encrease of GOD. DEAR Brethren The same pride that destroyed the first man at the begining is the cause of the ruine of such of his posterity as do perish For if you heed it well you will see that that 's the thing which maketh them despise or mis-embrace the CHRIST of GOD in whom alone stands our salvation It was pride that kept the Jews from embracing this singular gift of Heaven because saith S. John they lov'd the praise of men even as our LORD reproached them saying How can you believe seeing you seek honour one of another And S. Paul expresly informs us that the proud phancy they had to establish their own righteousness was the cause they submitted not to the righteousness of GOD. It was likewise pride that blinded the minds of the Gentiles so as they saw not the wonderful things of the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST The haughty opinion they had of their own vain wisdome induced them to disdain the wisdom of GOD and to account the Cross of His Son foolishness though it be an inexhaustible treasury of sapience Again in fine it is pride that hath seminated among Christians themselves all the heresies that have grown up into any request since the Churches nativity to this hour Ignorance animated with presumption hath brought them all forth and bred them up For if the unhappy workers that divulged them had kept to the doctrine of GOD and not lash'd out beyond what He hath revealed in His word if the vain fierceness of their Spirit had not emboldned them to enterprise things above the reach of men they would never have thought upon corrupting Religion with their falsly-subtil inventions It would have remained pure throughout and sincere to this day and such as the Ministers of our LORD and Saviour deliver'd it at first to their Disciples by word and writing But their pride mis-leading them did induce them to attempt things above their capacity and adore and spread abroad their presumptuous imaginations as true secrets of GOD. The Apostle informs us in this Text that this was the origine in particular of those errors and false services which certain Seducers went about to introduce at that time among Christians We heard in the last exercise upon this subject what their errour was namely that under colour of a false humility of Spirit they taught
the service or Religious worship of Angels We are now to consider by the assistance of GOD that which the shortness of time hindered us from explicating then to wit the marks of these false Teachers and the pernicious consequence of their errour For though the Apostles intimation of the thing it self be sufficient His authority in the Church being such as it is not lawful for any man whoever he be to teach or believe any thing in Christian Religion contrary to the sentiment of this great servant of GOD Yet not content with injoyning the Colossians that they should not let themselves be master'd over by these pretended Doctors who would cause them to serve Angels for the adding of more weight to his exhortation he discovers to them those Seducers their true motives and the cause of their errour and remonstrates also the dismal issue in which it did engage them For as you have heard he noteth first their audaciousness and ignorance when he saith that they intrude into things they have not seen Next he shews the source of them to wit their foolish presumption when he adds that they are rashly puffed up with the sense of their flesh And lastly he represents us the pernicious consequence of their doctrine the fruit and success wherein all their striving did terminate which was that in effect by their glorious services they debauched and disunited men from JESUS CHRIST the true and only Head of believers and so depriv'd them of that life that light and salvation which this Divine Head influxeth into the members of His mystical body For this is in substance the sense of the latter part of the Text in which the Apostle saith that these people did not hold the head from which the whole body being furnished and fitly knit together by joints and bands encreaseth with the encrease of GOD. In these three heads the whole meaning of this Text seems to me to consist Wherefore if it please GOD we will examin them distinctly one after another and in the Apostles order treat first of these Seducers boldness secondly of their presumption and lastly of the consequence of their doctrine which tendeth to the disuniting of men from JESUS CHRIST the Head of the whole body of the Church As for the first point this temerity to intrude into things one hath not seen is ordinary enough with all sorts of men ever since the venom of pride impoisoned their hearts and in special with all hereticks But it is remarkable particularly in those that teach the service of Angels it being manifest that those blessed Spirits whose worship they erect are of a nature much superior to us the order and operations whereof are open to no sense of ours But when the Apostle saith they have not seen the things into which they intrude his meaning is not simply that the eyes either of their body or of their natural reason never received the Species of these objects nor apprehended or conceived the consequences and conduct of their being but moreover that they neither had nor could have by the word or revelation of GOD any certainty of the things they affirmed For though the greater part of the matters of Religion be above our senses yet when GOD hath discover'd them to us and as it were rendered them visible in His word it becomes easie for us to know them by this means and the Scripture too doth call the knowledge that we have of them this way a sight of them Ezek. 13.3 Thus Ezekiel means when he reprocheth the false Prophets with following their own hearts when they had seen nothing that is they predicted and assured things for true which the foolish imagination of their own Spirit suggested to them though in truth GOD had shewed them no such matter in the light of His revelation It is just so that those Seducers did whom the Apostle taxeth in this place They dogmatized and affirmed it as a clear case that Angels were to be serv'd and invocated and to perswade men of it they delivered many things concerning their nature and their intervention between GOD and us Yet the truth is that of all this they neither had nor could have any certainty as being things which they had never seen either in the School of nature or the revelation of GOD. All our knowledge and assurance necessarily comes from one of these three sources namely either from sense and such is the knowlege we have of the things we see hear smell touch and taste or from reason and so doth humane science which is acquired or formed by discourse and natural reasoning or lastly from the revelation of GOD who discovereth to us by the light of His word divers objects and divers verities which neither our sense nor our reason could perceive in nature Now though reason doth cause men by the consideration of things that are or are done in the world to discern some principles and verities of Religion yet the whole of this is so small a matter and withal so confused and imperfect by reason of the corruption of our understandings that the Word of GOD ought to be held for the sole assured foundation of Religion according to that which the Apostle signifies to us elsewhere Rom. 10.17.1 even that faith cometh by hearing and hearing from the word of GOD. When therefore he saith here that the Seducers do intrude into things they have not seen he doth it 's true respect in general all those Sources of our knowledge and absolutely deny that these men had by them any of the things they dogmatized but he does particularly referr to the third that is the revelation of GOD. And his meaning is that the LORD had not shewed them nor made them see by His Word any of the things they preached and would set up in the Religion of Christians And though indeed they neither had nor could have any certain knowledge of them nevertheless they discours'd of them blindfold and did divulge their phantasies the visions of their brain and dreams of their own Spirit for indubitable necessary and wholesome truths A carriage which the Apostle doth excellently well set forth by that word of his which we have translated intruding a word that properly signifies entring into setting foot on and marching forth in some quarter as in ground we have title to Whereby he noteth out the vanity of these false Teachers who did not meerly busie themselves in a research of things above their capacity which is in it self a vain and ridiculous labour but also dared to speak of them and make peremptory decisions about them so going above ground and walking as may be said in the vacuum of their own imaginations mounting their thoughts unto a Region far above them like that poor Phrenetick of whom the Poets speak who having presumed to enter upon a strange Element and fly there soon found his rashness punished with his ruine The Prophet makes use of a like phrase
when to represent his modesty Psal 131.1 he saith that he hath not walked in great things and too high for him Dear Brethren we have no need to ascend so far back as the Apostle's time for examples of this vanity Our Adversaries of the Communion of Rome do afford us a sufficient store who as they retain the errour of those whom the Apostle here taxeth serving Angels as they did so do inherit their temerity intruding into things they have not seen They do magisterially pronounce that men must serve and invoke Angels and Saints departed They boldly define the Religious Worship that is to be given and divide it us into its kinds naming one of them Dulia and the other Hyperdulia all with as much confidence as if they spake of things most obvious to sence I urge not for the present that Scripture doth blast this whole errour every where intimating that we ought to serve no one in Religion but GOD alone and with loud voice anathematizing the Worship of any creature I pretermit what it saith particularly against the Adoration and Worshipping of Angels as also that S. Paul doth expresly prohibit it in the Text. I keep singly to the rule he here gives me that no belief be afforded those who intrude into things they have not seen and do demand of these hardy Doctors in what Region in what part of Divine Revelation have they seen these Services these Dulia's and these Hyperdulia's of which they so positively speak Where is it that the Holy Ghost hath shewed them these brave Doctrines To what Prophet hath He revealed them To what Apostle hath He signified them Of what Evangelist have themselves learnt them Sure they must here be husht of necessity They have not seen one of these pretended mysteries in the Book of GOD. They cannot shew us any track of them any where except it be in the fancies of Plato and of the Heathen Philosophers the Disciples of Daemons and not of GOD men taught in the School of errour and not in that of truth They proceed further yet and make us discourses about the Orders of Angels and distribute to them their business and cut them out their Ministrations they rank the Saints and give to them each his Charge and employment And if you ask them how these Spirits being in Heaven do hear our Prayers and requests and by what means they see the secret motions of our hearts They answer some of them that the mirrour of the Trinity upon which they incessantly have their eyes doth present them all the Idea's of them others that GOD reveals them to them some other way But whence do they know this It is neither sense nor natural reason that hath shewed it them If therefore they have seen it any where it must be in the Revelation of GOD. Yet it is clear and they cannot deny it that neither this pretended mirrour nor any one of their other conjectures do appear there at all Cajetan in 22. q. 88. a. â— And one of their most famed Authors sufficiently declares it We do not know saith he by any certain reason whether the Saints do perceive our Prayers or no although we do piously believe it as if it were piety and not pittiful credulity to believe things of which we have no assurance But let him make what account of it he pleases This is evident that since he confesseth they have no assurance of these things it must of necessity be confessed also that it is extreamly ill done of them to intrude into them except he will reject the Authority of the Apostle in his condemning those here most expresly who intrude into things they have not seen This vanity doth further shew it self in the things they give out concerning the state of Souls in their fabulous Purgatory the scituation the structure and partitions whereof they represent together with the fire and torments of the Spirits that are there imprisoned with such a deal of confidence as if they were just now come from thence after many years stay in the place Nevertheless the truth is that neither they nor their Ancestors euer saw one jot of it either in the Scriptures of GOD or in the nature of things there being not a word any where of any one of these imaginations That which they say of their Transubstantiation with its conditions and circumstances and of the manner how the body of CHRIST is present in every crumb of their Hoste and in every drop of their Chalice Their positions likewise concerning their pretended Sacrifice of the Mass and concerning the relative or Analogical adoration of Images and concerning the Characters which some of their Sacraments do imprint upon the souls of men and in one word all the points of doctrine that we contest with them are of the same nature All of them are things they have not seen they intrude into them walk in them and strout vainly commanding the belief or practice of them under pain of damnation how doubtful and uncertain soever they be and furiously anathematizing all those who make the least doubt to receive them As for us Dear Brethren who through the grace of GOD have learned to preferr His voice before the imaginations of men and to fear the thundrings of Heaven more than the fulminations of Rome let us leave them in this vain humour or to say better pray to GOD to bring them out of it and give them to distinguish their own dreams from His declarations And for our further acquitting of our selves let us religiously keep to the Apostles direction Intrude we never into things we have not seen Neither be so simple as to follow those that do or to suffer our selves to be mastered over by them Let us rest in the things which GOD hath clearly revealed to us in His word which He hath so set before our eyes in that Divine Treasury of His truth as very children may there behold them This portion is sufficient for us if we cultivate it well we shall find in it abundantly wherewith to inform our understandings wherewith to calm our Consciences and sanctifie our hearts and perfect all the faculties of our souls Let no man presume above that which is written 1 Cor. 4.6 Rom. 12.3 Take heed of being wise above what is meet but be wise to sobriety Let the word of GOD be the rule of our science and His Book the bound of all our curiosity All knowledge is had without knowing any thing beyond it This consideration alone is enough to preserve us from all the errours of Rome For since the intruding into things we have not seen is a temerity condemned here by the Apostle and in matter of Religion we can have seen none but such as GOD hath revealed in His Word it evidently follows that we are obliged not only to forbear believing but also to proceed to the rejecting of all the Doctrines about which we are in contest with Rome
and the same kind of terrene and material things and tend to one and the same end to wit the purifying and sanctifying of men and the rendring the Deity propitious and favourable to them by such exercises This whole sort of service is carnal tyed up to certain corporeal things and actions in which it consisteth as is meat and drink in watchings and cloathing in mens washing and discipling themselves going in procession or on pilgrimage repeating certain words and forms of prayer it also dependeth upon times having its years its months its days its festivals and its very hours all regulated This was the very form of the carnal or ceremonial service of the Jews which was directly opposite to that other kind of service that JESUS CHRIST gave us in His Gospel which without being bound up to these childish scruples of times of places and of things doth wholly consist in a pure and genuine worshiping of GOD in loving and fearing Him and tenderly affecting our neighbour in honesty and justice and in a true and lively sanctity Accordingly you know that whereas the former service is termed carnal the latter is stiled spiritual The one is a serving in shadow the other in truth the one in flesh the other in spirit 'T is then in my opinion all that first sort of carnal services from what Source soever they flow either the institution of Moses or the invention of any other man that the Apostle doth here call the rudiments of the world declaring that we have been freed from it by our LORD JESUS CHRIST remaining no longer subject to all this childish and infantile pedagogy nor bound up to houres or times or elements or other parts of the world but being raised above all these things so as we may make use of them with full liberty according to the interests of Piety and charity and not be any more imbondaged to them or depend upon them But because JESUS CHRIST hath procured us this great benefit by His death and does put us in possession of it by the communion we have with Him in respect thereof thence it comes that S. Paul sets forth this grace of His freeing us from subjection to the rudiments of the world in terms that referr thereto saying not singly that we are delivered from such kind of services by JESUS CHRIST but that we are dead with Him as to the rudiments of the world An expression exceeding graceful and elegant It signifies first that we are no longer subject to these rudiments of the world For the dead are out of all servitude The Laws demand nothing of them any more Neither their Lords nor their masters have any power to require ought of them any longer Death breaks all the bonds that tyed them to any subjection whatever The Apostle saith therefore we are dead to the rudiments of the world to signifie that we are freed from them that we are no more subject to them as he tells us elsewhere to the same sense that we are dead to the Law and again in another place Rom. 7. â— Gal. 2. â—9 Rom. 6. â— I am saith he dead to the Law that I might live to GOD. And thus too it is that we must take his affirming elsewhere that we are dead to sin that is to say delivered from its tyranny And because death puts an end to and abolisheth the power and authority of the master as well as the servitude and subjection of the vassal thence it comes S. Paul saith indifferently that sin and the commandment of the old Law are dead to us and that we are dead to them signifying by the one and the other that we are Subjects of theirs no more But S. Paul saying here that we are dead with CHRIST as to the rudiments of the world doth shew us in the second place both the cause of our liberty JESUS CHRIST and the means by which He acquired it for us to wit His death We are dead to all ceremonial services for that our LORD hath disolved and abolished them in dying for us For His death hath satisfied all the reasons upon which these rudiments of the world were for a time appointed It hath procured that righteousness which they represented and exhibited that salvation which they promised and brought in the substance whereof they were but shadows It hath opened the house of GOD unto the Gentiles whom they barred from it and put an end to the Old Testament to which they pertained and founded the new an eternal and immutable one which they prefigured Wherefore the Veil of the Temple was rent from the top to the bottom at the time that JESUS suffered death for a token that the antient worship whereof this Veil was a symbole became thenceforth abrogated and annulled In fine these words of the Apostle do discover to us further an apt resemblance that is found to be between the LORD's death on the Cross and our freedom from the yoke of Ceremonies For as JESUS in dying did divest Himself of the former life He led here below during the days of His flesh in infirmity and in subjection to the elements of Moses to take up a new one by His resurrection which was to be free divine and coelestial so we conformly by vertue of the communion we have with Him and particularly in His death do lay down that former manner of life that consisteth in the childish exercises of some carnal abstinences and devotions to live henceforth in the liberty of children of GOD serving Him no more in shadow and in figure but in spirit and in truth with a conscience pure and an heart not bound up to the places things and times of the old world but continually elevated to that new incorruptible and eternal one above the heavens where JESUS CHRIST the author and prince of our religion and salvation is Such is this Evangelical verity here laid down by S. Paul at the beginning of the Text that we are dead with CHRIST as to the rudiments of the world Whereby to mention it by the way you may see how much out in their reckoning they are who place the perfection of the faithful in the practising of these carnal disciplines and devotions accounting those for perfect who do use them S. Paul on the contrary terms them here the rudiments of the world so as the subjecting of Christians to such disciplines is so farr from being a perfectâ—â—◠〈◊〉 completing them as these men pretend that it is clean contrary a putâ—ing them back to their ABC and a reducing them from the highest Classis of the School of GOD down to the lowest there to become children again and lead a childish life with the disciples of Moses in an apprentiship to his rudiments and under the Ferule of his pedagogie The Apostle from this principle thus asserted concludes against the false teachers that all their ordinances touching abstinence from certain meats were vain unjust and tyrannical If therefore
marks that he might possess us with a just horrour at them Neither may it be answered that he speaks of such as hold the nature of meats to be impure and polluted in it self He attributes no such thing to those whom he condemneth and saith simply that they would command to abstain from meats If our Adversaries do not so command we do wrong to apply this Text unto them But since they eminently command the thing and so mightily esteem the command that they deny him the name of a Christian who doth violate it it is clear that of them also the Apostle speaks He alledgeth it is true that every creature of GOD is good and was created to be used by the faithful with thanksgiving He alledgeth this I say to refute this error as we also make use of it to refute that of Rome But he doth not at all impute to them whom he opposeth that they did formerly deny this verity and hereafter we shall hear that those whom he does in this place refute did ordain their abstinences for the humbling of the spirit and the mortifying of the flesh altogether after the same manner as our adversaries at this day do and not out of any opinion they had that the meats they prohibited were unclean or polluted in their nature Accordingly we read that the ancient Christians who lived about the end of the second Century and the beginning of the third did not forbear condemning the Montanists laws of abstinence and to apply to them that passage of the first Epistle to Timothy which we quoted even now though those Hereticks protested as they of Rome do at this day that it was not intended against them who believed with Catholicks both the Divinity of the Creator and the goodness and purity of the creatures but against the Marcionites and the Encratites who denied the one or the other or both of them together as we learn by a certain book of Tertullians in which he expresly pleadeth the cause of Montanus against the Orthodox whom in derision Tertul. lib. de Jujuniis c. 15. he calleth Psychiques Thus having refuted the error of those of the Roman Communion I should now come to answer their revilings For upon the pretext of our disapproving the tyrannicall law of their abstinences they accuse us of being Epicureans and our Religion altogether a Religion of flesh and blood and favouring gourmandise and drunkenness as if it were neither possible to commit excess with fish nor to exercise sobriety with any other food It is not now adays only that this error being unable to defend it self with reason hath had recourse to railing The Jews at the beginning seeing our Saviour live simply without the pomp of their fasts and abstinences called Him a glutton and a wine-bibber Mat. 11.19 the Montanists afterwards cryed out upon the Catholicks of those dayes as they of Rome do upon us at present that the belly was their god Tertullian ibid. and the Buttery their Altar and a Kitchin their Temple and a Cook their Priest and the steam of meats their Holy-Spirit and sauces their gifts of Grace Let it not shame us to be treated as the Son of GOD was with His first and best disciples I might here say many things of our morals and the morals of our adversaries and perhaps it would be found that our Carnavel is no less sober than their Lent and their abstinence many times as intemperate as our pretended dissoluteness But it is better to refute their slanders by the honesty of our lives than with the acrimony of our words Shew then dearly beloved Brethren by your sobriety purity and temperance that it is not the love of the flesh as calumny gives out but respect to truth which makes you embrace the party you do Defend your liberty in such manner as that you take it not for an occasion to live after the flesh Gal. 5.13 'T is this flesh that JESUS CHRIST hath forbidden us That of animals doth not defile such as eat of it soberly and with thanksgiving But this flesh renders all those truly unclean that suffer themselves to be tempted with its pleasures Abstain you from all its lusts Have in abhorrence all its sweets 1 Pet. 2.11 Eat not at any time of its fruits and count it a grievous crime to taste of its dainties It is of this flesh that we may without rigor lay the injunction upon you Touch it not and taste not of it Let the acts of injustice and the pollutions and the vanities to which it carrieth men of the world be an abomination to you and your meat as the LORD JESUS's was Joh. 4.34 to do the will of GOD and finish His work In particular keep your selves from the excesses of the season that is at hand Abhor the disorders of the world even more than you pitty its superstition and partake farr less in its debauches than in its abstinences Prepare your selves also for that divine repast unto which we are about to invite you by all kind of good works of piety and charity and above all remember that the doctrine of the LORD JESUS is we renounce ungodliness and the lusts of the flesh to live soberly justly and religiously and that His true discipline consists but in two points the one that we abstain not from what is in its nature indifferent but from what He hath forbidden us as contrary to piety towards Him or charity towards our neighbour or honesty in respect of our selves the other that we patiently and cheerfully suffer the pains and mortifications not which a voluntary superstition assigneth us but which His holy and paternal hand dispenseth unto us This dear Brethren is our Advent this our Lent and the true law of our abstinences The LORD JESUS who hath given it us vouchsafe us His grace that we may duly fullfil it to His glory the edification of our neighbours and our own salvation Amen THE XXXI SERMON COL II. Vers XXIII Vers XXIII Which have yet some shew of wisdom in voluntary devotion and humility of spirit and in that do they not at all spare the body and have not any regard to the satisfying of the flesh DEar Brethren It is a truth acknowledged by the Sages both of the Church and of the world that Man puts not forth his affections but to things that seem to him to be good whether they be such in effect or through error of mind he judge them such when in reallity they are not Examine the motions of your own souls and the designs and desires of your neighbours as far as you can penetrate them You will find without doubt and discover without difficulty that neither your selves nor they do love or pursue any thing but what you account to be good that is tending to your benefit and capable â—â—ther of yielding you some pleasure or affording you some profit or acquiring yâ—â— some honour Hence it is that the
Philosophers defined good by this its refâ—â—â— to our affections and by the vertue it hath to move and attract our desires 〈◊〉 Good is that which all desire And hence it comes that Impostors who 〈◊〉 trade of seducing men have alwaies taken a great deal of care to give their 〈◊〉 vain institutions some shew of goodness being not ignorant that witho◠〈◊〉 they should not be able to gain any mans affections and much less to have any train of followers in the world This is to be seen particularly in religion into wâ—â—â—n never was heresie nor superstition introduced but under the favour of this in posture though spirits of different capacities having medled in the matter there haâ—â— been accordingly a great difference between their cosenages For as those that would make a false stone pass for a Diamond or an Emerald or a Ruby do endeavour as farr as cunning is able to counterfeit the truth to give it the colour the shape the lustre the sparkling and other qualities thereof that by such a feigned resemblance they may deceive simple and unexperienced persons So they that have set themselves upon the corrupting of Religion to the end they might make the opinions and services they promoted be received for sound doctrines and disciplines have above all things taken a great deal of pains to guild over their merchandize and to colour it with some fair and specious pretexts fit to dazle the eyes of men and hide the defects of their doctrine and give it the shew of what in substance it is not It is this that the Apostle S. Paul doth observe here in the documents and commandments of those Seducers whom he undertook in this Chapter For having solidly and admirably refuted that superstitious discipline which they had set a foot and which consisted in a religious worshipping of Angels and in a scrupulous abstinence from certain meats and in the observation of certain festival days for a conclusion he discovers in this last verse the false colours wherewith they did in vain dawb it over He acknowledgeth that it had its true some shew of wisdom but denies that this was sufficient to cover its defects or to oblige the faithful to receive it Their Ordinances said he afore are commandments and doctrines of men Which yet he now adds have some shew of wisdom in voluntary devotion and humility of spirit and in that they do not at all spare the body and have no regard to the satisfying of the flesh It is evident that he speaks of those humane doctrines which he had been mentioning in the verse immediately foregoing and he says first that they have a shew of wisdom Next he represents particularly three things which give them this false shew voluntary service humility of spirit and rough treatment of the body which they did not at all spare These are as it were the three colours which being mingled together by the artifice of the Seducers composed that paint which rendred their doctrine plausible and gave it this false shew of wisdom that beguiled the eyes of the simple In compliance with this distinction we shall treat of three points in this action voluntary service humility of spirit and little care for the body and then consider how error and superstition have always made and still to this day make use of them to glose their inventions GOD grant us to beware duly of them and please for this end so to guide and assist us by His Spirit in discoursing of them as we may all bear away some Edification and Consolation The name of wisdom is great and honourable in the opinion of all people in the world For whereas other Sciences have respect but to natural or humane the relation of wisdom is to Divine things And whereas other knowledges are for the most part unprofitable to him who possesseth them that of wisdom is salutiferous it signifying the skill of conducting ones way aright for the attainment of happiness by the light of some choice and excellent verities Whence it follows that this title of wisdom doth not properly belong but to the knowledge of GOD which He hath given us by His Son in the Gospel the only light that is capable of conducting us to supreme felicity Accordingly you know it is the name that S. Paul does ordinarily give it as when he willeth that the word of GOD dwell richly in us in all wisdom and when he saith elsewhere that he speaks wisdom among them that are perfect calling the same a little after the wisdom of GOD in a mysterie the hidden wisdom and so often elsewhere Now though the doctrine of those who corrupt the Gospel as these Seducers did who S. Paul opposeth in this Chapter be nothing less in reality than wisdom yet so it is that its authors gave it the name and would have it pass in the belief of men for a rare and a beneficial knowledge more worthy of heaven than earth and capable in fine of rendring those that follow it perfect and happy The Apostle acknowledgeth that the doctrine of the Seducers of his time had this shew of wisdom but by his very granting them the shew hâ— denies them the truth of it and his meaning is that that doctrine of theirs had nothing but a false and a deceitful colour of wisdom not the substance and reality of the thing Voluntary service is the first particular that gave these doctrines of the Seducers such a shew They have saith the Apostle some shew of wisdom in voluntary service that is by reason or because of the voluntary service they taught and set a foot the observances and institutions which these men enjoyed as abstinence from certain meats the worshipping of Angels and the like being nothing else but voluntary services A service may be called voluntary two manner of waies First when he that performs it unto GOD doth it with affection and a good will without torment and constraint The love he bears this great and soveraign LORD sweetly bringing his soul under His yoke and disposing him to account whatsoever He hath commanded to be good and delectable In this sense that free and sincere obedience which true believers render unto GOD according to the Gospel may be stiled voluntary because it proceeds not from a spirit of bondage as theirs doth who do serve only because they are afraid but from a spirit of Love and of Adoption crying in their hearts Abba Father Wherefore the Prophet termeth the new people who render this frank and filial service unto GOD Psal 110.3 under the Gospel of the Messiah a voluntary or willing people Thy people saith he speaking to Him shall be a voluntary people or a people of frank willingness in the day that thou shalt assemble thine army in holy pomp It is not in this sense that the Apostle understands the voluntary service he speaks of in this place For first though the terms voluntary service which are taken up
utmost and highest point of its perfection in the Heavens when there shall be seen a compleat and Angelical sanctity to shine forth in it with glory and blessed immortality In fine the Apostle doth also briefly touch at both the manner after which and the pattern by which this renovation is wrought in us For the manner of it he saith That this new man is renewed in knowledge thereby shewing that JESUS CHRIST for the communicating of this new Nature which is in Him as in its source unto us doth give us and day by day augment the knowledge of his truth in us for as ignorance and error is the first and principal deformity of the old Man and the cause of all the rest so on the contrary Wisdom and Knowledge is the first and principal lineament of the new Man whereby are formed in us all the other vertues in which it doth consist as Love of GOD and Charity towards men and all the other holy habitudes which depend upon them it being manifest that we love none but the things we know and proportionably to the knowledge we have of them Wherefore the LORD begins the admirable work of his grace hereat And we have an excellent image of this method of his in the first Creation of the World where Moses expresly observes that the first thing GOD created by his Word was Light which is the symbol of Knowledge as darkness is of Ignorance This the Apostle plainly pointeth at elsewhere GOD saith he who commanded the light to shine out of darkness 2 Cor. 4 6. hath shined into our hearts This light of Knowledge once lighted up in our souls by the Spirit of the LORD doth presently expel Vices out of them and shewing us the holy and glorious face of GOD in JESUS CHRIST transforms us into his likeness as saith the same Apostle 1 Cor. 3.18 We all beholding as in a glass the glory of the LORD with open face are transformed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the LORD It 's this he meaneth in the Text when he saith of the new Man that it is renewed after the image of him who created it that is of JESUS CHRIST our LORD For he properly is the Pattern by which that new Nature we are made partakers of is formed He is both the Author and Exemplar of it and 't is for this that it is called by his Name to wit the new Man Therefore the Apostle elsewhere to express the end and effect of his Ministry toward the Galatians Gal. 4.19 saith That he travelleth in birth until CHRIST be formed in them He had no other design but to revest them with the new Man Certainly then the new Man is nothing else but JESUS CHRIST formed in us that is nothing else but the form of this holy and blessed LORD engraven and imprinted on us by the seal of his Word and Spirit which is precisely the thing he here calls his Image If you know JESUS CHRIST you cannot be ignorant what this his form and image is JESUS CHRIST is the Saint of Saints a man full of all purity righteousness charity patience constancy and truth and in sum of all the lights of holiness Sure then his form and image can be no other than a genuine representation of these Divine qualities a soul in which appears a goodness an humility an honesty I say not equal for it is not possible to arrive unto so high a perfection but at least semblable and proportionate to his And this is that which S. Paul elsewhere compriseth expresly in two words saying That the new man is created after GOD in righteousness and true holiness Thus you see Brethren what that Old and what this new Man is which the Apostle speaks of in this place The one is the image of the first Adam and the other of the second He commandeth us to put off the old Man with his Deeds and to put on the New a manner of speaking no less elegant than familiar in Scripture which is wont to say of all the things that are found in this or that subject that it is clothed with them As when the Prophets say that GOD is clothed with strength with Glory and with Magnificence that he is cloathed with Justice that he will cloath his Priests with salvation and their enemies with shame that he will cloath the Heavens with darkness and so in a multitude of other places where it is evident that the term Cloathing is taken figuratively to express simply the putting of any thing in such or such a Subject whether it be internally or externally Whence it follows that to put off on the contrary is simply to quit a thing which one had and rid himself of it Thus to put off the old Man is nothing else but to rid our selves of his Vices and of his corruptness to pluck up for instance out of our hearts his covetousness and his ambition and the habitudes of his other sins But the Apostle expresly addeth that we put him off with his deeds that is to say that we not only pluck up out of our hearts the habits of Vices which are as it were the roots and stocks of it but that also we cut off from our lives all the actions whether interior as desires and lustings or exterior as other sins which proceed from the same and are as so many fruits of this accursed plant For to speak properly the old man is one thing and the act of sin that issues from it another The one is the corruptness it self of our nature the other is the effect it produceth The one is as the Plant and the other as its Fruit. For example cruelty or covetousness is one of the very members of the old Man murder or stealing ing are acts of it The Apostle would have us put off the one and the other that neither Vice nor its acts might have any place in us In like manner to put on the new Man is on the other hand to deck and adorn our understanding our will our affections and all the parts of our life with those excellent vertues in which the new man consisteth as we have said afore to endeavour it studiously and take no rest till we have them formed in us and our whole nature be covered and enriched with them But though these two words to put off and to put on be in this passage figuratively taken yet do they shew us notwithstanding against the gross and sensless error of some that as well the old Man as the New do both of them signifie the form and disposition not the substance and very essence of our nature For when a thing is utterly destroyed we do not say it puts off what it had but that it is perisheth And when the substance of a thing is produced altogether of new we say not that it 's cloathed but created so as the Apostle here commanding us to
spirit and knit together by one and the same Faith Hope and Charity No one hath part in the Kingdom of Heaven who lives not in the communion of this body Sure then it 's one of our greatest concernments to maintain peace among our selves and to put it as the Apostle gives us order in the highest place of our hearts that it may govern with supremacy all our thoughts all our motions and sentiments For there are no natural bodies but their members do conspire and live with one another in a perpetual and inviolable peace The societies of States and Families which are bodies but of another kind namely political and oeconomical are governed in the same manner their primary and most sacred law is that all the orders and persons of which they are compos'd have peace with one another Now if this hath place both in nature and in the societies of mankind how much more ought it to be observ'd in the Church which is a divine a coelestial and supernatural body Our own interest doth naturally require it For as war doth weaken and ruine the States into which it thrusts its self and whose members it divideth so on the contrary Peace establisheth fortifieth and conserves them according to that saying of our Saviour Matt. 12 2◠Every kingdom divided against its self shall be brought to nought and every City or house divided against it's self shall not stand The Apostle addeth in the close and be ye thankful which some referr to the same scope that the rest of the Text hath as if he intended that those thanks we owe to GOD for the free favour He hath shewed us in receiving us unto peace with Him do also evidently oblige us to maintain peace with our brethren And I acknowledge the argumentation is good and pertinent Yet it is better to take this clause for an exhortation he maketh us in general to be thankful towards GOD and towards men For as ingratitude is one of the blackest and most detestable vices expresly enrolled by the Apostle among the marks of those wretched times whose extreme corruption he foretells in the second Epistle to Timothy so is it sure that gratitude 2 Tim. 3.2 or thankfulness is a vertue most necessary of any and in my opinion he went not very wide from the truth who called it the mother of all other vertues Cicers It enkindleth piety in our hearts raiseth up the love of GOD and of His CHRIST and carrieth us to serve and obey Him and by consequence to exercise all honesty and vertue It is certain that upon this account no man sins without ingratitude Add hereto that thankfulnesse is the source of all the services and duties we persorm to our Princes to our Countrey to our Parents to our Superiors and all that have obliged us offices as you know that have an huge extent in 〈…〉 it's with a great deal of reason that the Apostle 〈…〉 give us charge also touching Thackfulnesse Dear Brethren These are the three Vertues which he tells us of in this Text. Let us not neglect any one of them But embrace them all three and deck our lives internally and externally with them In the first place above all let us put on Charity as the soul of Christianity the perfect bond of your union the mark of GOD's children the abridgement of all our duties and the mother of all Vertues Having it you have all and without it you have nothing Without it all the profession you make of the Gospel your prayers your religion and your services are but an empty noise a sounding brass 1 Cor. 13.1 as the Apostle speaks and a tinkling cymbal Because the Israelites wanted this GOD had all their devotions and all their sacrifices in abomination How much more will He reject yours if you have the impudence to present Him any without Charity Now that His Son JESUS hath so magnifically discovered to you the necessity and excellency of it For what can you alledge any longer for excusing your selves from this duty Nature it self verily sufficiently obliged you afore to love your neighbours since that they are your brethren even after the flesh issued from the same Adam and the same Noah animated by the same Spirit clothed with the same body born and bred upon the same earth and if you devest your selves of all the difference that vanity and opinion hath created you will see that in truth there is none at all between you and them You are subject to the same accidents they are and the death that at last brings them down will no more spare you than it does them Having so strict a conjunction with them you ought to look upon them as your other selves and love them as your neer relations and not account any thing that betides them forein or indifferent The Heathen who knew no more had the understanding to draw this conclusion from it But the Cross of our LORD and Saviour hath discovered to us other reasons of Charity that are much more excellent and much more pressing For He so loved men that He died to save them Christian how can you hate or despise persons whom your Master hath so much loved and esteem'd upon whom you see His blood whereby they have been wash'd and purified together with your selves His Spirit with which they have been sealed as well as you The first-fruits and earnests of that heavenly inheritance unto which they and you are called to live eternally together in the same It 's by that they are to be considered and not by what they are upon this earth which with the whole heap of all its pomps and riches and nobility and honours and other pieces of vanity is but a figure that passeth away and perisheth If your neighbour hath nothing on the earth if he be despised and accounted the filth and off-scouring of the world as the Apostle speaks remember that he hath his share in Heaven that he is an heir of this eternal Kingdom the child of GOD and brother of JESUS CHRIST Let this dignity of his which is so high and so precious in the sight of GOD and His Angels induce you to love him to tender him and apply your self to him let it mitigate your resentments if he hath offended you let it stretch for your hands to a ready communicating of the succour of your alms of your consolations and of your good offices if any necessity of his does call for them For such is the nature of true Charity it loves not in word and with the tongue but indeed and in truth Let ours then abound in alms and in beneficence unto the poor in consolations of and in good offices to the afflicted Let it be firm and constant Let not our brethrens ill successes no nor their offences if it befall them to do us any be ever able to break this sacred bond of perfectnesse which spiritually joyneth us and them together in our
Apostle would have husbands love their wives even First that they live ordinarily with them as far as the necessity of their affairs permits not finding sweeter divertisement nor more pleasing company any other where Then next that they carefully make them partakers of the graces GOD hath given them and principally in all that concerns the salvation of their souls which is the greatest good of all faithfully directing them about it both by good and holy speech and also by pure and vertuous deportment It 's in this they ought to exercise that advantage which nature and the Apostle gives them shewing themselves to be truly the heads and guides of their wives in the matters of GOD's service and of holiness of life for this end making provision of all necessary knowledge that if they at any time consult them in their doubts 1 Cor. 14.35 as S. Paul commands they may be able to instruct them least in defect of it it might be said of them as a Prophet sometime said of Idols Hab. 2.18 that they are teachers of nothing but vanity But unto these cares for the soul the husband ought to add those also which respect the present life labouring in his vocation and imparting to his wife a share of all the substance he possesseth or acquireth proportionably to her need of it either for her own necessary food and raiment or for the maintaining her children and family as befits her condition It 's this the Apostle means when he commandeth husbands to love their wives But he forbids them in the following words to be bitter against them that is to be â—roward to them requiring that all their conversation with them be full of sweetness and amity The Pagans themselves have observ'd the justness of this duty as what we read of one piece of their devotions beareth witness For when they sacrificed unto that idol of theirs whom they call'd Nuptial Juno because they gave her the superintendency of Marriage they were wont to take the gall out of the victim and cast it behind the altar signifying thereby as say the interpreters of their Ceremonies that there ought to be no gall nor bitterness in marriage The Apostles meaning then is that the husband do first purge his heart of all this sowrness and bitterness that he never suffer hatred nor malevolence nor anger nor provocation nor fretting nor disgust to enter there against a person whom he ought to love as himself Next he would have the husband clense all his words and actions from the same poison For if he who is angry with his neighbour without cause and gives him the least reviling word doth deserve torment as our Saviour declareth of what hells is not he worthy who outrageth his own flesh Her whom he ought to cherish and tenderly affect as CHRIST doth His Church But if the Apostle command a Christian to use no offensive or opprobrious speech against his wife he doth as little permit him to shew bitterness of spirit by an angry sad and obstinate silence which is no less provocative nor less sharp to say truth than the most outragious reproaches In conclusion by this clause the Apostle does further and with greater force of reason banish out of conjugal converse the cruelty and rigour and tyrannie of those boysterous barbarous husbands who treat their wives as bond-servants denying them that share which the laws of GOD and man do give them in the government and administration of the houshold And the utmost degree of this inhumanity is when unto revilings and contempt they add blows and excesses of hand an outrage which the authors of the Roman Civil Law thought so unworthy of the conjugal alliance that they permit the wife so exceeded against to break with her husband approving and authorizing her divorce if she can prove he struck her Thus Dear Brethren you have heard what we had to deliver for the exposition of this Text. It teacheth us all in general first that all sorts of people may and ought to read St. Paul's Epistles and by consequent all the holy Scriptures For why should this holy man address his speech here to wives and their husbands to children and their fathers to servants and their masters if he meant not that all these persons should have the reading of this letter Christians fear not to read what the Apostle hath vouchsafed to write you It 's in vain that some forbid you the reading which it is his mind you should practise None can know better than he how those Epistles must be used which he wrote Then again he shews us further here how unjust the indiscretion of those is who have so ill treated the worthiness of marriage that by their manner of speaking of it you would say they held it incompatible with Christian purity St. Paul doth every where maintain the honour of this holy order and never prohibit or disparage it at all Also as the precepts which he gives to Masters to Pastors and others do clearly authorize the right and the dignity of those conditions so is marriage established by the lesson he writes here and often else-where unto married persons But the Devil knowing well that this holy institution of GOD is infinitely profitable unto men both to preserve them from tentations to incontinence one of the broadest waies to Hell and also to sweeten the harshness of their natures by the tenderness of conjugal and paternal affections and for divers other ends of great importance unto civil life and unto piety it self the enemie I say not ignorant hereof hath subtilly made hatred or contempt of marriage to insinuate its self into the spirits of a sort of men under divers plausible pretexts so as in conclusion Christians who would think it have asserted it a piece of sanctification to abstain from it and in the sequel prohibited to the Ministers of Religion For our parts Beloved Brâ—thren we constrain none to marry If any have received this grace of GOD that they can contain and live pure out of this estate let them forbear it if it seem them good Only we say two things first that the making use of it is free to all there being no dignity nor profession in the Church excluded from Divine permission of it Secondly that to such as have not the gift of continency marriage is not only permitted but even necessary and of whatever rank they be their marrying is so far from offending GOD that they offend Him much if they marry not Hereto for a conclusion we adjoyn a serious exhortation to all who are in this estate that they sedulously put in practise the lesson which St. Paul hath now given them Even that wives be subject to their husbands as is meet in the LORD that Husbands love their wives and not be bitter against them Many complain of finding thorns in this condition instead of the roses they hoped for Men charge it upon the pride the levity the vanity the
is not worthy of me he cannot be my Disciple Saving this just and reasonable exception children owe their fathers that obedience in all things which the Apostle here enjoyns them And first in those which are of themseves good and holy and conform to the Divine will beside that the Law of GOD obligeth us all to them the command of a Father doth moreover oblige anew his children and if they fail in it beside the crime they thereby commit against GOD they commit another against paternal authority which shall be charged on them and punished apart as a different sin and worthy of its particular penalty Secondly the child again owes obedience in medial and indifferent things that is things which are morally neither good nor evil the extent whereof is very great Though such things be free of their own nature yet they are so no more unto a child after the father's order His command draws them forth of that indifferency in which they lay and renders them necessary in reference to him And here must no self-flattery take place I wish and it is their duty as we shall hear anon that Fathers would command nothing but what is humane and equitable yet if they forget themselves and pass these bounds how harsh and troublesome soever their commands be obey'd they must be if they contain in them nothing impious or contrary to the Divine Law according to the express order that S. Peter giveth Servants to be subject to their Masters not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward The reason for children in reference to their fathers is the same in this behalf with that for servants in reference to their Masters You see then Beloved Brethren the just extent of all those things in which the Apostle would have children obey their Parents Whence appears how unrighteous and dangerous and contrary to the Word of GOD the Doctrine of those of Rome is who enfranchise all Christian children from this paternal authority and power daughters at twelve and sons at fourteen giving them liberty at these so green years of age to go from their parents house will they nill they and retire from under their obedience into the cloysters of their monasteries where they have erected an assured sanctuary and an inviolable safegard for the rebellion of children against their fathers and their mothers There under the umbrage of a false devotion they entertain children in idleness and foment their impiety tyrannically giving them a dispensation for that obedience and those just succours which by all the laws of GOD and men they owe to the sacred persons of those who gave them being in the world The father demands of 'em the assistances and consolations which he promised himself from them He sheweth them his gray hairs and his limbs trembling through age he conjures them by the life he gave them and by the cares he took to breed them up He summons them to render him the just rewards of his pains and not to despise the tears and treaties of a person to whom they are obliged for their life The mother all in mourning presents them the paps that nursed them and sets before their eyes the tenderness of her affection and all the tyes of nature And they both together adjourn them before GOD that they may see themselves condemned at His dreadful tribunal to pay the honour which they owe them What say our adversaries hereupon They say that children ought to look upon their fathers and their mothers without emotion That neither their words nor their weeping should make any impression upon them That if they cannot enter into the monastery otherwaies than treading their bodies under foot they ought to have no horrour at all at so unnatural an action That it is piety to be cruel and insensible on such an occasion They say the monastick vow hath broken all the bonds of filial subjection and that the child who hath made it does no longer owe any thing to father or mother that he is dead to them and they have no more power over him no more than if he were out of the world Oh unrighteous and cruel and unnatural doctrine How could these men more plainly contradict the holy Apostle The Apostle saith Children obey your parents in all things for this is pleasing to the LORD And these Masters say Children obey them not in all things if they forbid you to be Monks scorn their Order It they command you to abide with them be gone against their will For you would do a thing displeasing to the LORD if you did not disobey them Neither let them alledge us here that they are now grown up If they cease to be children by attaining unto twelve or fourteen years I will acknowledge that they are no longer subject to their parents But if they must confess that no age does devest them of this quality it must be acknowledged that neither does any give them a dispensation for obedience since the Apostle commands it to all such as are children They excuse themselves upon the account of devotion This would pass if the father called his child unto impiety or commanded him to deny JESUS CHRIST or to serve idols But this father and this mother who would keep their child at home are Christians as well as Monks are and their house makes a part of JESUS CHRIST's as well as the Cloyster where he is kept in The obedience they demand of him is a duty commanded by the Law of GOD and very far from being contrary thereto I urge not at present that the vows by which he is pretended to be bound are contrary to the word of GOD as particularly that of mendicancy are rash as that of never marrying are injurious to the LORD as that of the blind and absolute obedience which they promise to a mortal man Let them go for permitted Certainly at least are they not necessary and themselves as great admirers of them as they are do confess I take it that one may serve GOD and obtain His kingdom without the precinct of a monastery and that neither beggery nor single lite nor the frock are things absolutely necessary to salvation There is neither place where one may not serve JESUS CHRIST in spirit and in truth nor habit but is compatible with piety Now the child ought to obey his father in all that GOD hath not prohibited Since then He hath not prohibited the living abroad out of the houses and habit of Benedict of Francis of Loyola and such other institutors of monastick life every child is necessarily obliged not to enter into them when his father forbids it him But you will say what if he hath made a vow to enter If he hath he hath done ill against the dues of piety and charity and such vows if it be an error to make them it is blindness and obduration to keep them The first and most inviolable of our vows is that which binds
either by defect or excess do not render to their servants what is right as for instance those that overbear them with toil or strokes and they that quite contrary let them live idle and in debauches those that diet them ill or too well and lastly they that defraud them of their wages which is one of the most horrid and cruel acts of injustice that can be committed But besides right the Apostle would have Masters render also to their servants equity The word he makes use of in the original properly signifies a certain equality and correspondence that should appear between the offices of the one of them and the deportment of the other so that as the servant obeyeth in singleness of heart and in the fear of GOD the Master likewise do command holily and religiously and that as the one serveth with joy and respect in like manner the other do govern with mildness and affection In a word right comprehends all that refers to justice and equity all that pertains to Christian Charity and gentleness For the reducing of the faithful unto this holy moderation he orders them to remember that they also have a LORD in the Heavens His meaning is that the dominion they have over their servants is not absolute but dependant on GOD and by consequence such as ought to be regulated by His word and will If they have people beneath them they have a Master and a Soveraign above them who is the common LORD of them all and unto whom they are to give account of the treatment which their servants shall receive at their hands He says particularly that this LORD is in the Heavens to hold them the better to their duty by the consideration of so redoutable a Majesty who is not here beneath on earth the place of misery and vanity but on high in Heaven sitting on an eternal throne and from that glorious habitation of light and immortality doth consider and govern all things at His pleasure nothing coming to pass in His whole Empire but He plainly perceives and most justly judgeth of This great LORD is above all and there is neither Master nor Prince of such elevation among men but is under His feet He is superlatively holy just and good He loveth all His creatures and concerns Himself in the wrongs of the meanest and most contemptible ones hating nothing more than injustice and insolence outrage and cruelty possessing withal an infinite wisdome and an almighty power which none is able to resist Sure then consideration of the Empire and soveraign dominion that He hath over us is very proper to keep us within bounds and to restrain us from abusing the power He hath given us over persons subject to us nor could the Apostle put those that have servants in mind of any thing more pertinently that should oblige 'em to render them right and equity Thus we have explained his instructions It 's now for you Beloved Brethren to make your profit of them and to gather the fruits he offers you in them for the amendment of your lives and the consolation of your souls First Ye Christians whom the meanness of your birth or as they call it of your fortune hath reduc'd to the condition of serving rejoyce ye at the the honour done you by this great Minister of CHRIST who disdaineth not to address his holy voice unto you Set the care he hath of you against the contempt that men cast upon you Let his speaking to you comfort you and raise your hopes of the inheritance of GOD. Think well upon the report he makes you that the persons to whom ye are subject are not your Masters but in reference to the flesh Your servitude will not be eternal Nay it will not be very long nor extend further at most then to the end of that carnal life which ye lead upon the earth When this earthly tabernacle is once dissolved you shall enter into the glorious liberty of the children of GOD and then there will no more be any difference between you and your Masters For the present your better part is already in possession of this liberty namely that spirit which GOD hath formed in you after his own image and which maugre all the outrages of men will ever remain master of it self if you give it to JESUS CHRIST the great freer of mankind who doth faithfully and speedily enfranchise every one that receiveth and embraceth His truth Only take heed that ye abuse not His grace as if the spiritual liberty He hath gratify'd you with did discharge you from doing faithful service to your Masters after the flesh The more He hath illuminated you in the knowledge of Himself the more fidelity and love do you owe. For besides other reasons the fear of GOD and the will of JESUS CHRIST doth now oblige you to obey them so that the serving them makes up a part of your piety According to your acquitting your selves therein well or ill GOD will give you or deny you his inheritance But besides your own interest the glory also of the Gospel is concerned in the case For your faults defame our religion and make it believ'd to be a licentious discipline whereas your fidelity will produce us praise Every one will be constrained to acknowledge the sanctity of our doctrine when they shall see it reform the deportment even of man and maid-servants And this the Apostle doth expresly represent unto you elsewere Tit. 2.9 10. Let servants saith he be obedient to their masters pleasing them well in all things not answering again not purloyning but shewing all good fidelity that they may adorn the doctrine of GOD our Saviour in all things Object me not the ill humour and rigour of your Masters Remember the words of St. Peter 1 Pet. 2.18 who obligeth you to serve not only such as are good and equitable but also the froward Take their ill treatment for an occasion by which GOD would exercise and refine your faith Receive those strokes of the rod from His hand and not from theirs making them matter for your patience and a tryal of your faith Let the eye of JESUS CHRIST who looketh on you let His favour and benediction which always accompany conscionable sufferings let the hope of his inheritance for your Salary sweeten all the pains of your servitude How ingrateful soever men be to you your patience shall not be left unrewarded if ye persevere in it constantly for CHRIST'S sake And you Masters who so much desire to have faithful and obedient servants render ye to them that right and equity which the Apostle commands you Though your extraction or estates set you above them in humane society yet your nature is no other then theirs Ye are subject to the like infirmities with them One and the same death will consume you both nor will there be any difference between your dust and theirs You shall appear before the same Judge and the tribunal