an example of it in the Text which you even now heard For having said afore that the Colossians had heard of the hope which is laid up for us in the Heavens by the word of truth to wit the Gospel from thence he takes occasion to interpose in this verse something to its commendation representing to us the extention and efficacy of this Divine word of life The Gospel saith he which is come unto you as also it is into all the world and bringeth forth fruit as it doth also in you since the day that you heard and knew the Grace of God in truth In the two verses that follow he praiseth Epaphras who had by his Ministry converted the Colossians to the knowledge of the LORD giving him an excellent testimony of fidelity and goodness and mingling therewith some praises of the Colossians themselves As also saith he you have heard of Epaphras our dear fellow servant who is a faithful Minister of CHRIST for you who also hath declared unto us your Charity which you have in the Spirit This shall be if it please the LORD the matter of this action And to proceed upon it in order we will consider one after the other the two particulars that present themselves as you see in the Text of St. Paul to wit the praise of the Gospel in the former verse and that of Epaphras in the two next touching at also upon each what the Apostle intermixeth to the commendation of the Colossians As to the Gospel he toucheth at two points First its admirable progress and its great and sudden spread It is saith he come unto you as also into all the world and secondly its divine effectualness to convert men and change their manners and life And it bringeth forth fruit saith he as also it doth in you since the day that you heard and knew the Grace of GOD in truth He saith therefore first That the Gospel was come to the Colossians secondly That it is also come unto all the World About the first there is no difficulty For since there was a Church in the City of Colosse it is evident that the Gospel by which Christian Churches are founded and builded had been Preached to them Only we should observe in this event the marvels of the goodness of GOD towards the Colossians For they were a barbarous and an Idolatrous people very far off from the Countrey and the Religion of Israel a portion of Phrygia a Province infamous for its abominations from whence had issued the mysteries and infernal devotions of Cibele called by the Gentiles the mother of the GODs the most detestable of all Pagan Idols and in whose service were committed the most unclean and shamefullest horrours The Colossians as other inhabitants of Phrygia were plunged in this gulf of vileness when the LORD vouchsafed to visit them and make the light of His Gospel to arise upon them Whence appears that the knowledge He gives us of His word is a present from His meer grace and not the pay of our pretended merits For what had the Colossians in the condition they then were that might invite Him to communicate this rich treasure to them what had they on the contrary but might have diverted Him from it seeing all among them was full of a profound and inveterate Idolatrousness You see also the Apostle saith not that they were come to the Gospel but that the Gospel was come to them to shew us that it is GOD that cometh to us who preventeth us by His grace according to the determinate purpose of His good pleasure The sick do go or send to the Physician and sollicite the succour of his art Here quite contrary the supream Physitian of souls seeketh to the sick He comes to them in His benignity He sendeth them His Ministers and presenteth to them His remedies when they dream of nothing less Luk. 19.10 than of their malady and the cure necessary for them The Son of man came to seek and save that which was lost He dispatcheth His servants to Colosse and elsewhere to bear thither His salvation to people that thought not save of destroying themselves He makes Himself be found of them that sought Him not Isa 65.11 and saith unto a Nation that was not called by His Name Behold me behold me Let a man search as much as he pleaseth He shall never be able to find any reasonable cause of this dispensation of GOD communicating His Gospel at certain times and to certain places but His sole good pleasure And that we might the better note this truth He often directeth the light of His word to those that governed themselves worst in the state of nature and hideth it from them that seemed less defiled than others He imparteth His Gospel to the Colossians to the Ephesians to the Corinthians and such like the most lost men that were in all kind of superstitions and Vices He saith nothing to the Gymnosophists or the Brachmans or to divers others as well Barbarians as Greeks which were esteemed at that time the most innocent of all mankind as in effect there appeareth much more of justice and honesty in what is reported to us of their manners than in those of any other people Wherefore hath GOD taken this course Because if He had done otherwise if He had called only those in whose policy and life was seen some outward goodness to shine forth passing by those whose manners had nothing which was not damnable we should have believed without all doubt what some cannot yet forbear to say that it is the works of men that oblige GOD to call them and to impart His Gospel to them and that if in rigour they be not worthy of this favour they merit it at least in a seemliness of equity and in congruity as they speak of it in the Schools of Rome Therefore the LORD useth very often a clean contrary procedure to make us understand that those whom He calleth do not more than those he leaveth merit ought at all as in effect it is most true that all men in the corruption wherein they are born do nothing that is of value the most splendid of their pretended vertues in this estate being but a plaister and a deceitful dawbing which under a fair appearance hideth only deformity and filth and that if He vouchsafe to illuminate any with the light of his Gospel it is of the sole good pleasure of His grace He doth it and not at all for merit of theirs It was therefore a miracle of the Divine goodness that this saving Doctrine came to the Colossians who by their nature were so far from it and the Apostle remindeth them of it to animate them more and more in sincere gratitude towards the author of so great a benefit But that which he addeth is much more strange and incredible that the Gospel was come into all the world He testifieth it too elsewhere as here a little after where
of the Gospel and to give it to the Fopperies and Vanities which they preach S. Paul to put the Colossians out of all doubt and ambiguity indicateth expresly to them what this Gospel is of which he speaketh That saith he which you have heard namely of Epaphras who had preached it among them and to whom he gave before an excellent Testimonial for fidelity and sincerity I mean saith he the Gospel which you receiv'd at the beginning from the mouth of true Servants of GOD and not these vain and dangerous Doctrines which evil workers would make to pass with you for the Gospel of CHRIST though they be nothing less then so But to confirm them the more in the faith he sets before them in the second place an excellent encomium of the Gospel which containeth a clear proof of its truth saying That it is the Gospel which was preached to every creature under heaven It is not the Doctrine which these false Apostles sowed here and there in some out quarters whispering and privily advancing the same among light and unstable spirits It is the true Word of the Son of GOD which had been proclaimed through the whole Universe by His command and according to the Oracles of His ancient Prophets That Word which going forth from Jerusalem did spread its self every way in a very little time and being accompanied with the power of its Author made it self be heard and believed in all the Provinces of the habitable earth in spight of the contradictions of Hell and the world His assertion that the Gospel was preached to every creature which is under heaven may be expounded two manner of ways but both of them amounting to the same sense First by a Figure very common in Divine and Humane speech the word Creature may be taken for Man the noblest and most excellent of all the Creatures And the LORD had so used the word before in the same matter when He commanded His Apostles to do what S. Paul doth magnifie in this place Go ye forth said He to them into all the world and preach the Gospel unto every creature Where it is evident that by every creature He understandeth men who alone are capable of hearing and receiving what is preached In this sense when S. Paul saith that the Gospel was preached to every creature it is as much as if he had said to all mankind and among all sorts of men agreeably to what he saith here a little after speaking of himself that he admonisheth every man Col. 1.28 and teacheth every man in all wisdom Secondly these words To every creature may in my opinion be taken also as signifying in all the world and this the rather because it is literally in the Original in all the creature with the Article the and not simply to every creature Now that S. Paul sometimes useth this term the creature to signifie the world this great body and collection of all things which GOD hath created this is manifestly to be seen in the Epistle to the Romans where he saith Rom. 8.19 20 21. That the great and ardent desire of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the children of GOD and again That the creature was made subject to vanity and more a little after That all the creature groaneth and travelleth in pain together until now where it is clear and confessed by the greatest part of Interpreters that the creature signifies the world and our Bibles to make us understand it the better do change the singular number into the plural rendring it les creatures and toutes les creatures the creatures and all the creatures whereas the Original readeth simply the creature and all the creature Taking it thus therefore in this place when the Apostle saith the Gospel was preached in all the creature which is under heaven he meaneth in all the world wherein we dwell wherein GOD hath seated mankind beneath the heavens I will make no stay here now to shew you how it might be truly said in S. Pauls time that the Gospel of our LORD was then preached to all mankind or in all the habitable world or how this event is a clear and solid proof of its truth We have already heretofore handled both the one and the other of these two particulars in expounding if you remember the sixth Verse of this Chapter which affirmed that the Gospel was come unto all the world Upon that Text which signifies no other thing than what the Apostle saith here namely that the Gospel hath been preached in all the creature which is under heaven We shewed first by good and irrefragable testimonies of Ancient Writers both Christian and Pagan that the heavenly Word had been preached within the Apostles days in all Countreys then known either to Greeks or Romans and receiv'd for the most part with fruit so as taking the word World according to the stile of all Languages not simply and absolutely for all the parts of the Terrestrial Globe but only for those which at that time were known to men and which they understood to be inhabited it might be said with truth and without any over-reaching Hyperbole as S. Paul declareth here that the Gospel had been preached in all the creature which is under heaven that is in all the world And in the second place we proved both by the importance of the thing it self and by the respect it hath to the Oracles of the Old Testament which had predicted it many ages before its event that this so swift so sudden and so admirable running of the Gospel through all the world in so few years is a certain and infallible evidence of the verity and divinity of this holy Doctrine obliging consequently both the Colossians heretofore and us at present to hold fast and persevere in the faith which we have given to it without suffering our selves to be ever mov'd away from it either by the cheating arts of false Teachers and their crafty Seducements or by the Threatnings and Persecutions of the world These things having been heretofore largely deduced and opened to you lest the repition of them should be irksome I will pass to the third head of our Text wherein the Apostle sets before the Colossians another Character of true Christian Doctrine to wit that it is the Word the Ministery whereof was committed to him It is saith he the Gospel of which I Paul have been made a Minister He opposeth his heavenly call to the temerity of the false Teachers who ran without having been sent and preached not what Heaven commanded them but what earth inspir'd them with their impulsions and instructions being from flesh and blood and not from the LORD JESUS It was otherwise with Paul all the faithful knew him to have been called from heaven and suddenly changed by the efficacy of Divine power from a Wolf into a Pastor made an Herald and witness of the Gospel immediately by the LORD JESUS instructed in His
His last breath with a spirit clear and a soul calm speaking to us of His approaching happiness and of the present grace of His LORD with so much efficacy as it stopped Your tears and in such manner forced the resentments of your grief that how just soever they were You had nevertheless a secret shame to make them appear in the presence and on the occasion of so vertuous a person as if Laments and Plaints should have in some sort offended His piety and dishonored the victory of his faith The same GOD that loosed Him so miraculously from earth to raise him up to heaven granted You to support the affection of His departure with a patience worthy Your vocation After so rude a blow He hath yet sustained You and conducted You to an honourable old age that few persons do attain And now I doubt not but Your principal consolation and the agitations of the present world and the infirmities of this age is the assured hope you have of arriving also one day at the port of that blessed immortality where contrary to the ordinary course of nature You have seen this dear Son enter before You. If in the holy exercises of Piety by which You daily prepare You for it the reading of these Sermons may find place and be of any use for Your consolation I shall therein have extream satisfaction at least I can well assure You it is one of my most ardent desires who pray GOD to preserve you with all your Family in perfect prosperity and remain inviolably From Paris April 1. 1648. SIR Your most humble and most obedient Servant DAILLE Imprimatur Tho. Tomkins Ex. AEd. Lambeth May 15. 1671. SERMONS ON THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS THE FIRST SERMON On the I II III IV V. VERSES Verse I. Paul an Apostle of JESVS CHRIST by the Will of GOD and the Brother Timothy II. To the Saints and faithful Brethren in CHRIST which are at Colosse Grace be unto you and Peace from GOD our Father and from the LORD JESVS CHRIST III. We give thanks for you unto GOD who is the Father of our LORD JESVS CHRIST praying alway for you IV. Having heard speak of your faith in JESVS CHRIST and of the love you have to all the Saints V. For the hope which is reserved in Heaven for you whereof you have heretofore heard by the Word of Truth to wit the Gospel THE Apostle St. Paul's Assertion is verified in the afflictions of the faithful by constant experience Rom. 8.27 and they ever work together for good to them that love GOD. Beside the excellent fruit which the afflicted themselves receive from them such as they sooner or later acknowledge with the Psalmist That it was good for them to have been afflicted Psal 119.71 they are also serviceable to the edification of others For as Roses the fairest and sweetest of Flowers do grow on a rough and thorny stock so from the afflictions of the faithful rugged and piercing to the flesh spring forth examples of their Vertue and instances of their Piety sweetest and most salubrious productions See what a rich store of benefits the tryals of Job and of David have yielded us It 's to them we owe that admirable Book of the Patience of the former and a good part of the Divine Hymns of the latter Had it not been for their afflictions we should not now enjoy after so many Ages that inestimable treasure of Instructions and Consolations What shall I say of the sufferings of St. Paul which did spead the Gospel all abroad and convert the world unto knowledge of the true GOD. His imprisonment at Rome alone under the Empire of Nero hath done the Church more good than the peace and prosperity of all the rest of the faithful that then were It gave reputation to the Gospel and made it gloriously enter into the stateliest Court in the world It inspired an heroick courage into Preachers of the truth It awakened the curiosity of some and inflamed the charity of others and filled all that great City with the Name and Odor of JESUS CHRIST Nor was it of use unto the Romans only It imparted its celestial fruit unto the remotest Regions and Generations For it was in this very confinement that this holy man wrote several of his Divine Epistles which we read with so much edification to this day as those to Philemon to Timothy to the Ephesians and that directed to the Philippians the Exposition whereof we last finished and the following to the Colossians which we have chosen to explain henceforth unto you if GOD permit Paul's Prison was a common receptacle whence have issued out those living Springs which water and rejoyce the City of GOD and will furnish it even to the end of the world with the streams it needs for its refreshment Having then already drawn from the one of these sweet Springs that Divine Liquor wherewith we have endeavoured according to the Ministry committed to us of GOD to irrorate the heavenly plants of your faith and love we now turn us my Brethren to the other a no less quick and plentiful one than the former Bring ye to it as the Lord requires souls thirsting for His grace and He will give you as He hath promised living water which shall quench your drougth for ever and become in each of you a Well springing up to eternal life The Church of the Colossians to whom this Epistle is addressed having been happily planted by Epaphras a faithful Minister of CHRIST the enemy failed not to sow forthwith his Tares within it by the hands of some Seducers these men would mingle Moses with our Saviour and together with the Gospel of the one retain and observe the Ceremonies of the other To make their error the more pleasing they painted it over with colours of Philosophy subtility of Discourse curiosity of Speculations and other such like Artifices Epaphras seeing the danger whereinto this prophane medly did cast the faith and salvation of his dear Colossians advertiseth St. Paul of it then Prisoner at Rome The Apostle to withdraw them from so pernicious an error taketh Pen in hand and writeth them this Letter wherein he sheweth them that in JESUS CHRIST alone is all the fulness of our salvation in such manner as that we should deeply injure Him to seek ought of it out of Him since in His Gospel we have abundantly wherewith to inform our Faith and form our manners without adding thereto either the shadows of Moses or the vanities of Philosophy At the entrance He saluteth them and congratulates them for the Communion they had with GOD in His Son Next he draweth them a lively pourtrait of the Lord JESUS wherein shine forth the dignity of His person and the inexhaustible abundance of His benefits Upon that he undertaketh the Seducers and refutes the unprofitable additions wherewith they sophisticated the simplicity of the Gospel Afterwards from dispute he
that the Apostle did the honour to write this Epistle S. Paul qualifieth the Christians at Colosse Saints and faithful Brethren He calleth them Saints a name he ordinarily giveth to all true Christians and which belongeth to them indeed forasmuch as GOD separating them from the rest of men by the effectual working of His Word and by the Sacrament of His Baptism cleanseth and purifieth them from the filth of Sin and delivereth them from the servitude of the flesh and consecrates them to His own name and service to be to Him a peculiar people addicted to good works Whence it comes that the whole body of the faithful is called in the Creed The Holy Church Mark this well my Brethren and make account that you cannot be Christians except you be truly Saints Suffer not your selves to be abused by the deceitfulness of those who promise you this glorious Name provided only you make profession to believe in CHRIST and that ye will live in the Communion of their Church how naught and impious soever ye be other wayes the body of the LORD is too lively and precious to have dead and rotten members I confess if you have the industry to hide your Vices under the false appearances of an outward profession you will gain thus much that men will give you the name of Christians and reckon you among the members of the Church as it might well be that among those whom the Apostle honours here with the Name of Saints and faithful there were some hypocrites But GOD who seeth the secrets of our hearts and upon whose judgement our whole condition doth depend will never count you Christians or members of his Son if you be not truly Saints Paul likewise and the Church who by a charitable judgement call you now Disciples of the LORD will change their opinion and rank you with profane men and worldlings when they shall discover your Hypocrifie The Title Faithful which the Apostle gives in the second place to the Colossians is common to all true Christians too and is taken from that Faith they give to the Gospel of the LORD The word Brethren that follows signifieth the holy communion they had with the Apostle and with all other believers of whatsoever quality or condition they were as persons all begotten of the same Father namely GOD all born of the same Mother Jerusalem from on high all partaking of the same Divine Nature all nursed in the same spiritual family bred up in the same hopes destined to the same inheritance consecrated by one and the same Discipline In fine He adds in CHRIST because it is of Him and by Him and in Him that we have all this Sanctity Faith and Fraternal union the titles whereof he hath given to the Colossians After having thus denoted and qualified the persons He writes unto He wisheth them according to His custom Grace and Peace from GOD our Father and from the LORD JESVS CHRIST By Grace He meaneth the favour and good will of GOD with the saving gifts and divine assistance wherewith he gratifieth those He loveth in His Son By Peace He signifieth that of GOD which is nothing else but the calm and tranquility of a soul that looketh to the LORD with assurance having remission of its sins by JESUS CHRIST and is delivered by the effectual operation of His Spirit from the importune tyranny of the lusts of the flesh It may yet well be that beside this first and chiefest peace the Apostle intendeth also that of men a sweet and calm estate exempt from their hatred and persecutions that they might without justling them or being troubled of them lead a peaceable life in all godliness and honesty You should also know that in the stile of Scripture the word Peace signifieth generally all kind of welfare and prosperity to which sense it may without inconvenience be interpreted in this place But he wisheth them these benefits From GOD our Father and from our LORD JESVS CHRIST From GOD because He is the first and highest spring of all good the Father of lights from whom cometh down every good gift From JESVS CHRIST for that He is as the channel by which the benefits of GOD stream down upon us it being clear that without the death and resurrection and in a word without the mediation of JESUS we could have had no part in the least of the Graces of GOD. He calleth GOD our Father because He hath adopted us freely in His Son and it is properly upon this relation that He communicateth His Grace and Peace to us whence it cometh that JESUS CHRIST hath given us order to call Him our Father in the prayer He hath taught us He calleth JESUS CHRIST the LORD because he is our Master who hath all power and authority over us as well by the right of Creation as by that of Redemption Such is the Inscription of this Epistle Let us come now to the second point of our Text wherein the Apostle congratulates the Colossians for the part they had in JESUS CHRIST We give thanks saith he to GOD for you who is the Father of our LORD JESVS CHRIST praying alwayes for you having heard speak of your faith in JESVS CHRIST and of the charity you have towards all the Saints for the hope that is reserved for you in Heaven which you have before heard of by the word of truth to wit the Gospel Here is as the Preface or Exordium of the Epistle which extendeth as far as the thirteenth Verse wherein the Apostle by the true praises he giveth the piety of the Colossians winneth their benevolence and declares to them His affection to prepare them for a right and faithful reception of the instructions he will hereafter propose to them as proceeding from a soul desirous of their salvation He protesteth therefore to them First In general that as often as himself and Timothy prayed GOD for them they did it with most humble thanksgivings for the happy estate wherein in Spirit they saw them Next he toucheth more particularly the grounds of this thanksgiving and proposeth three of them First The faith of the Colossians Secondly their charity and in the third and last place the inheritance reserved in Heaven for them Three particulars which comprize all the felicity of man The part He taketh in the happiness of the Colossians teacheth us one of the most necessary offices of our charity which is to interess our selves in the affairs of our Brethren to mourn with them that mourn to rejoyce with them that joy and be as nearly touched with their good and evil as our own Far from our practice be the envy and malignity of worldlings to whom the prosperity of others giveth trouble and their adversity gladness who feed themselves with their miseries and are sad at their mercies But the Apostle sheweth us moreover by this his example that the joy we have for the good of our neighbours should be elevated unto GOD who
last words of this Text whence it is that the Colossians had conceived so high an hope Of which saith he you have heard heretofore by the word of truth to wit the Gospel This Soveraign bliss which is reserved for us in the Heavens is so highly raised above nature that neither subtility of sense nor vivacity of reason nor even the light of the Law could discover it to us much less give us the hope thereof 2 Tim. 1.10 That same JESVS CHRIST who hath destroyed death hath brought to light life and immortality by the Gospel Before this they were either entirely unperceived or imperfectly known and hoped for It 's therefore precisely from the Gospel that we draw both the faith and the hope of them He calleth the Gospel the word of truth not as some will have it because it is the Word of JESUS CHRIST who is the Truth and the life for this exposition is more subtil than solid but because it is the most excellent of all Verities those that are learned in the School of Nature and of the Law being mean and unprofitable in comparison of those which the Gospel doth discover to us It may well be that the Apostle would also secretly oppose the doctrine of the Gospel to those of the seducers which still recommended shadows and figures as we shall hear in the following Chapter whereas the Gospel presenteth us the substance and the truth of things And it seems to be in this sense that St. John after he had said The Law was given by Moses addeth in form of opposition John 1.17 But grace and truth came by JESVS CHRIST because the Law had only dark lineaments and shadows whereas the LORD JESUS brought us the lively image the body and the truth of celestial things The Apostle remindeth the Colossians that they had already heretofore heard this Word of truth as it were to protest unto them that he would promote no novelty among them having no other design but to confirm them more and more in the holy doctrine they had already received with faith from Epaphras and other Ministers of the LORD See well beloved Brethren that we had to say to you for the exposition of this Text. It remaineth that we briefly touch at for you the principal points we should gather of it as well for the instruction of our Faith as the edification of our Charity and the consolation of our souls As for Faith 't is for it's security that St. Paul telleth us at the entrance He is an Apostle of JESVS CHRIST by the will of GOD advertising us by this quality He assumeth to receive no doctrine into our belief which hath not been annunciated by these great and highest Ministers of the LORD Let us examine the Spirits and admit only the word of the Apostles If any one Evangelize beyond what they have preached let us hold him for an Anathema We have their Scriptures Let us assuredly believe all that we read in them Let the doctrine which appears not there be suspected to us and praised be GOD that according to this rule we have banished from our Religion that which error and superstition had thrust into Christianity You know that the GOD the CHRIST the Heaven the Worship and Sacraments we preach have been given us by the Apostles of the LORD established by the Will of GOD and do appear throughout in their Gospels and in their Epistles Whereas the Mediators whom our Adversaries invocate the High Priest they acknowledge the Traditions they maintain the Purgatory they fear the greatest part of the Sacraments they celebrate the adoration of the Host the veneration of Images and the voluntary Worships which they practise are not found at all either in the Old or the New Testament Let us therefore firmly retain our Religion as instituted by the Will of GOD and constantly reject what is beyond it as come of man and not of the LORD from the Earth and not from Heaven But it is not enough to make profession of it we must plant this doctrine in our hearts by a lively belief in such sort as we may be able to say with truth That we have faith in JESUS CHRIST and charity towards all the Saints We render thanks to GOD with the Apostle for that of His great mercies He hath vouchsafed to communicate this treasure of His Gospel to us and not in vain since there are among us that have truly made their profit of these spiritual riches But the life of the greater part renders them unworthy of the praise which St. Paul here giveth the Colossians For is this to have Faith in JESUS CHRIST to serve Him so loosely as we do and testifie so little zeal for His glory so little respect to His Commandments so little belief of his documents and so little affection for the interests of His Kingdom As for Charity I am ashamed to speak of it so cooled is ours For if we loved all the faithful should we leave the life of some of them and the reputation of others without succour Should we injure them instead of defending them Should we take away their substance instead of communicating to them our own Should we black their honour instead of preserving it Would their prosperity offend us Would their miseries content us Faithful Sirs remember they are the Saints of GOD His Children and the Brethren of His CHRIST Respect those so sacred names and spare persons that have the honour to belong so nearly to your LORD He will judge you by the treatment you shall give them and write on his account the good and the evil which they shall receive from your hands recompensing it or punishing in the very same manner as if you had honoured or violated Him in His own person He will cut you off from His communion if you do not carefully regard and practise theirs and will never avouch you for His Children if you acknowledge them not for your Brethren And here alledge not to me I beseech you that you have faith I know well that this divine light cannot be in souls which are cold and destitute of Charity But suppose that this were possible I tell you and declare that all your pretended faith should you have the highest degree thereof that may be in the world without charity would be but a shadow an Idol and an illusion and as St. James saith a stinking carkass James 2.26 Do all you will Have as much faith and knowledge as you please if you have not charity you are not a Christian you are but a false and deceitful image of one Charity is absolutely necessary to the perfection of a Christian It is the badge of this holy Discipline it is the honour and the glory of it and the Apostle as you see sets it down here among it's essential parts Faith shall cease in Heaven when we shall see instead of believing But charity shall remain for ever Have then a
good thing so necessary for you If you have it not hitherto ask it of GOD incessantly with prayers and tears and quit Him not before you have obtained it If you have it thank Him for it more than for all the goods of the Universe and make account that in giving you charity He hath given you the Life the Kingdom and the Crown of Heaven Exercise this precious gift continually let there be none of your neighbours without feeling of it Do good to all Communicate what you have received the light of your knowledge to the ignorant the succour of your good offices to the afflicted the sweetness of your patience to enemies the consolation of your visits to the sick the assistance of your alms to the needy the example of your innocence to all with whom you converse But have a particular care of Saints the members of the LORD JESUS who serve Him here with you and how poor soever they be have yet been redeemed with His blood and predestinated to His glory as well as you Dear Brethren your labour shall not be in vain Your charity shall bring forth it's fruits in their season with a most abundant usury For terrene and perishing good things which you shall have sowed here below you shall one day reap on high those that are celestial and immortal for a little bread and a little money that you shall now give to JESUS CHRIST you shall receive from His liberal hand the delights of Paradice and the treasures of eternity This is the hope which is reserved for you in the Heavens It is not the word of weak and vain men that hath promised it to you You have heard by the Gospel the Word of Truth which cannot lye And as so magnificent an hope should enflame our Charity so should it comfort our patience and render it invincible under the Cross to which the Name of CHRIST doth subject us Consider a little what the men of the world do and suffer for uncertain hopes that whirl in the Air flote on the Sea and depend upon the Wind and Fortune to how many dangers they expose themselves to what travail and disquiet they condemn themselves Voluntarily passing nights and dayes in a most laborious servitude for an imaginary good that neither yet is nor perhaps shall ever be and which how happy soever the success of their designs may be they shall not enjoy at most but during some years only Christian shall it be said that you have less zeal for Heaven than these people have for Earth Their hope is doubtful Yours is assured Theirs dependeth on the will of men and the inconstancy of elements Yours is in Heaven Pursue then generously so high and glorious a design And since your hope is in Heaven have incessantly heart affection and thought there Regard no more either flesh or earth it is not here your bliss is JESUS CHRIST hath seated it on high at the right hand of the Father in the Palace of His holiness Let this excellent hope sweeten all the evil you suffer here below If you be not at ease here if you be despised if you have no part in the wealth or honours of the world think that in like manner neither is it here that JESUS CHRIST hath promised you the rewards of your piety That Heaven which you see so constant and immutable keeps them faithfully for you You shall there receive one day the honour the glory and the dignities you now breath after not to possess them during some miserable moneths as worldlings enjoy their pretended riches but eternally with a perfect and unspeakable contentment in the blessed communion of Saints of Angels and of JESUS CHRIST the Lord of the one and the others To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit the only true GOD blessed for ever be honour and glory to ages of ages Amen THE II. SERMON COL I. Ver. VI VII VIII Vers VI. The Gospel which is come unto you as also it is into all the World and bringeth forth fruit as it doth also in you since the day you heard and knew the Grace of GOD in truth VII As also you have learned of Epaphras our dear fellow servant who is a faithful Minister of CHRIST for you VIII Who also hath declared unto us your charity which you have in the Spirit DEar Brethren the Gospel of our LORD JESUS CHRIST is the most excellent and most admirable Doctrine that was ever published in the Universe It is the grand mysterie of GOD the wisdom of Angels and men the glory of Heaven and the happiness of the Earth It is the only seed of immortality the perfection of our nature the light of our understandings and the sanctity of our affections There is no Philosophy or other Discipline but this alone that is able to deliver us from the slavery of Devils and make us Children of the most High It is this solely that truly purifieth us from the filth of sin and clotheth us with a complete righteousnes that plucketh us out of the hands of death and hell and giveth us access to the Throne of GOD there to receive of His bounty life and supreme felicity All other religions invented and followed by flesh and blood are wayes of perdition disciplines of errour and vanity that present themselves to poor men in the thick darkness of their ignorance as those seducing fires that sometimes abuse Travellers during the obscurity of the Night leading them into the deeps of death and eternal malediction The Law it self though come from on high is nevertheless as much beneath the dignity of the Gospel as Sinai is beneath Heaven and Moses beneath JESUS CHRIST The Law affrighteth Consciences the Gospel assureth them The one slayeth the sinner the other raiseth Him up again The one maketh grace be desired the other makes it be enjoyed The one presented the shadows and figures of the truth the other giveth us the lively image and very body thereof Whence you may judge my Brethren how much it concerneth us to know so saving and Divine a Doctrine that we may embrace and obey it since the repose and happiness of our souls stand on it which we shall unprofitably seek any other where It is to enflame us with an ardent desire of this holy and blessed knowledge that the Apostle St. Paul proposeth to us so often in His Epistles the praises of the Gospel scarce ever naming it without adding presently something to its commendation as the custome is of those that love ardently never to speak of that they love without giving it some Elogy that testifies both its excellency and their passion Such is the manner of Our St. Paul towards the Gospel of his Master He hath his soul so full of the love and admiration of this Heavenly doctrine that He can neither pronounce nor write the name of it but He accompanies it with praises as the just and due marks of its dignity We have
are those mouths of Hell that inspire nothing but hatred and kindle nothing but animosity envy and revenge in the souls of those whom they can breath upon who busie themselves in making dissentions among brethren in dividing and arming one against the other such as nature or grace hath most strictly united But it is time henceforth to conclude this action that which you have heard may I think suffice for your understanding of this Text and so nothing remains for me but to conjure you to make in good earnest your profit of it and to draw from this Meditation the holy uses it containeth whether for the correction of your manners or the consolation of your souls The Gospel of JESUS CHRIST is come unto you the same Gospel which yerwhile changed the Universe which abolished Idolatry and Paganism and made the knowledge and service of the true GOD flourish every where The LORD hath raised you up Epaphras's faithful Ministers of His Word who have published it to your Fathers and to you with exquisite sincerity and truth entirely so as Paul preached it to the Nations without any leaven of superstition or error acquitting themselves in their Stewardship with so upright a conscience with so much zeal and ardour as I assure my self that the great Apostle were he now on earth would do them the honour to own them for his dear fellow-labourers You have seen this sacred doctrine renew the proofs of its divinity by the swiftness of it's course and efficacy of its vertue as which in little time flew through all Christendome and in spight of the oppositions of Hell and Earth rais'd up every where fair and flourishing Churches to the LORD We may say particularly of yours that the Gospel fructified in it from the day it was heard there The blood and the sufferings of so many faithful ones as gloriously sealed its truth therewith their charity their zeal their good and holy works of which memory remaineth still among us are unreproachable witness of it But I know not whether I may justly add what the Apostle saith here of his Colossians that the Gospel bringeth forth fruit still in you For those few fruits which it produceth here are choaked up with so many thorns and bryars so many sins and vices that they scarce deserve to be considered Not that the Gospel is changed in its self It hath still that immortal force which GOD gave it to bud and thrust forth and produce the fruits of righteousness and life It is ever the incorruptible seed of GOD His Word living and abiding for ever full of efficacy and vigour Whence then cometh this sterility Dear Brethren it cometh from the bad disposition of our ground and not from the weakness of the heavenly seed The Gospel fructifieth not among us because it falls in stony places and by the High-ways or among thorns upon souls either full of worldly lusts and carnal cares or exposed to the feet to the going to and fro of Devils or frozen up and hardned with the fear of temporal evils This is Faithful Sirs the true cause of our barrenness Let us then purge our hearts Hos 10 12 Jer. 4.3 and as a Prophet saith break up our fallow grounds Let us pluck up the thorns which the world hath planted there avarice the desire and deceitfulness of riches ambition and the love of our flesh sensuality and vanity When you shall receive the Gospel into souls so prepared it will not fail to shew it's fecundity It will bring forth it's fruit abundantly in some an hundred for one in others sixty in others thirty Without this it is in vain that we boast us of JESUS CHRIST and of His Word His Word is not given us but to fructifie If we abide barren far from serving us it will aggravate our condemnation and draw upon us a judgement so much the more terrible by how much the more plentifully it was communicated to us Remember that dreadful threatning justified by so many sad and lamentable experiments which the Apostle denounced to the Hebrews The earth that bringeth forth thorns and thistles is rejected and nigh unto cursing and it's end is to be burned 'T is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living GOD who is so much the more severe to punish the contempt of His Word by how much the more liberal He was in imparting it to men These same Colossians whose faith and charity the Apostle praiseth here and their neighbours the Laodiceans and those of Hierapolis for not having continued to bear fruits worthy their Vocation saw some years after their Cities ruined and swallowed up in an horrible earthquake And all those fair Churches of Asia so much celebrated in the Acts and the Apocalyps are at this day entirely desolate for not having made their profit of the Gospel GOD hath already begun too to avenge this contempt of His Word in divers places of Christendome which the bryars and thorns of the old superstition do cover once again instead of the Gospel that lately flourished there GOD forbid Dear Brethren that we should fall into the like condemnation To prevent it let us recover the zeal of our Fathers let us do the first works Let the Gospel fructifie again in the midst of us Let it bring forth and make to grow up abundantly charity meekness honesty peace humility patience alms prayer fasting sobriety chastity and the other fruits of the Spirit and above all a spiritual love of St. Paul and the other Apostles who report the Gospel to us to respect them and walk in their doctrine concord and mutual love in one towards another If we make this use of it GOD will take pleasure in the midst of us He will daily visit us He will cherish us as His Paradice His Heritage the Garden of His delights He will pour out upon us here below all kind of graces and blessings in abundance and after having seen us fructifie on Earth He will one day transplant us into Heaven to live and flourish there for ever in the Courts of His own blessed and eternal habitation Amen THE III. SERMON COL I. Ver. IX Vers IX And for this cause we also since the day we heard it cease not to pray for you and to make request that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding THE love of beauty and excellency is so natural to us that we cannot discover so much as the beginnings and buddings of it any where but we take pleasure in them and the secret content we thence receive usually causeth us to wish their growth and their perfection unless envy or some other maligne passion do check the moving of our hearts Thus when we see towardly Children and that promise well there is no soul that hath ever so little of humanity but is delighted and maketh the like apprecation for them as Joseph did sometime for Benjamin when
naturally Let us learn then in the second place to give the LORD alone the whole glory of all that we are in His Son as in reality it belongs to none but Him He hath not only given us this rich inheritance the purchase of the blood of His Son CHRIST He hath even given us the capacity to enter into it and possess our part of it Besides His making us the present He hath also given us the strength to receive it For it is not with the inheritance of GOD as with the honours of earthly Princes these fall often into the hands of persons most uncapable to possess them That Divine honour of the Heavenly inheritance is given to none but those that are capable of it that is who have the conditions requisite for having part in it to wit faith and repentance But the same GOD who hath prepared the heritage for us gives us also the preparation which is necessary for entring into it according to what the Apostle saith elsewhere 2 Cor. 3 5. Joh. 6 44. It is GOD who is our capacity or sufficiency and what our LORD Himself averreth in St. John No man can come unto me except the Father who hath sent me draw him This again is that which the Apostle intendeth Phil. 2.13 in the Epistle to the Philippians That it is GOD who produceth in us with efficacy the will and the deed according to His good pleasure 2 Cor. 5.5 Eph. 2.10 1 Cor. 3.9 And elsewhere he compriseth this whole work of the grace of GOD in one only word saying It is He that formeth us for the self same thing Therefore he calleth us in one place the workmanship of GOD and His Creation in JESVS CHRIST and in another His husbandry and His building Whence it doth appear that the offer of grace which is made to all by the Gospel if there be nothing else doth not give us part in the heavenly inheritance I grant it is sufficient in its self and would produce its effect in man if the badness of his heart had not blinded him But this deplorable blindness he hath obstructeth the effect which these offers of the divine Grace should produce Wherefore GOD himself maketh us capable of them by that inward operation of His Spirit wherewith He accompanieth the preaching of the Gospel in the hearts of His elect by reason whereof they are called the taught of GOD. Joh. 6.45 It 's this teaching which renders them capable of entring into the communion of His Son according to what He saith in St. John Whoever hath heard and learned of the Father Ibid. cometh unto me Thus He made Lydia capable of having part in his inheritance opening her heart to understand the things Paul spake as the sacred History doth report It 's without doubt in the same manner He also made both St. Paul and these Colessians and all the rest of the faithful capable of the same effect enlightning them within and leading captive their hearts into the yoke of the Gospel In fine we may again observe how contrary to Apostolick doctrine the presumption of those is who vaunt them of meriting salvation If there be any thing in us to which merit is attributed without doubt it is our capacity and sufficiency that we are meet to partake of the Kingdom of GOD. But this very thing is a present from GOD for which we owe Him most humble thanks How then and by what right can we in justice demand pay and wages for it Would it not be altogether as if a patient should enter action against his Physitian and compel him to recompence the being cured by his art Or a poor man demand wages of us for receiving our almes or a prisoner for having been redeemed with our money Let a man turn and transform things as much as he will it is clear that gratification and merit are incompatible and that He who is of right obliged to render thanks cannot without folly pretend to have merited by that very thing for which he renders thanks Our sufficiency and capacity is a gift of GOD or it is not If it be a gift of His why pretend you that it is meritorious If it be not why doth the Apostle thank our LORD for having made us capable to have part in His inheritance The word Inheritance which the Apostle employeth here evidently confirms the same truth as an ancient Doctor of the Church hath well observed Chrysostom it loc Why is it saith he that the Apostle useth the word Inheritance To shew us that no man obtaineth the Kingdom of Heaven by his own works or performances But as an Inheritance depends upon happiness and not upon merit so is it in this matter None can exhibit a form of life and conversation exquisite enough to be worthy of the Kingdom The whole proceedeth from the gift of GOD. To proceed I doubt not but St. Paul took this term from the Old Testament wherein the Land of Canaan destined and given to the Children of Israel for an inheritance according to the promises made to their Fathers was the figure of this blessed spiritual and divine life in possession whereof GOD putteth us by the Gospel of His Son beginning it here below by the consolation and sanctification of His Spirit and reserving to complete it on high one day in the Heavens by the communication of His immortal glory For as each Israelite had his portion in the Land of Canaan the same in substance with the rest but diversly qualified so each believer hath his share in celestial life yet after such a manner as though for the main they all possess the same life nevertheless it is diversly proportioned and relished to each of them Again as none but the Children of Abraham had right and title to that ancient inheritance So there are none but the Children of the promise which are born of the word of GOD and not of flesh or of blood that have part in the new For this cause the Apostle entitles it The inheritance of Saints Away ye unbelieving and profane It is not for you that GOD hath prepared this glorious inheritance Deceive not your selves 1 Cor. 6.10 Neither Fornicators nor Idolaters nor Adulterers nor the Effeminate nor Thieves nor Covetous persons nor Drunkards nor Revilers nor Extertioners shall have part in the Kingdom of GOD. It is designed for Saints alone The portion of the profane and ungodly is elsewhere during this generation in the world and in its wretched delights and when it shall pass away in the lake of fire and brimstone But the Apostle having stiled that salvation which GOD communicateth to us in His Son the Inheritance of Saints addeth further in light As light is in Scripture the symbole of two things knowledge and glory so it may be taken here two wayes either for the knowledge of those divine things which GOD revealeth in His Gospel or for that soveraign joy
the heart to offend still a LORD so charitable so admirable How is it that His so divine beneficence doth not transport our spirits doth not win to His service all the thoughts and affections and motions that we have Christians all the acknowledgement He demands of you for so much good done you is but that you live holy Refuse Him not so just and so reasonable a due He hath made you to partake of the inheritance of Saints Be not ye so ingrateful as to mix with the profane Be ye separate from them and have no communion with the impurity and ordure of their vices Despise not as Esau the title you have to so precious an inheritance Let it be dearer to you than all the perishing provisions and delights of the earth none of which is better than that pittiful pottage of Lentils for which the profane man did truck away His birth-right This inheritance is in light Live then as children of light Let your conversation be all radiant with those divine and heavenly vertues which the Gospel of your Saviour recommendeth unto you The darkness is now passed The Sun of righteousness is at his full height Let that infamous power of darkness under which you sometime groaned have no more authority over you Open all your understanding that you may perceive the glory of the LORD and suffer no more abuse by the illusions of errour Labour to encrease your light being still at the Scriptures of GOD the living spring of all spiritual illumination the inexhaustible treasure of saving knowledge But let this light shine also in your manners For it 's to no purpose to renounce the darkness of superstition if you remain in that of vice 1 Joh. 2.11 He that hateth his Brother saith St. John is in darkness and walketh in darkness and knoweth not whither he goeth for darkness hath blinded his eyes Remember you are no longer in the School of Satan the Prince of darkness You are in the Kingdom of the Son of GOD. Have thoughts and do actions worthy of so glorious a condition Let it purifie your life of all stench and sordidness Let it elevate your hearts above mortal things and set them in Heaven the residence of this Divine royalty But Dear Brethren as this Text doth oblige us to a singular studious pursuit of Sanctification so openeth it to us a living source of consolation and joy For if we knew our blessings and that wonderful grace which the Father hath shewed us what were there more happy than we We have part in the heritage of Saints The kingdom of the beloved Son of GOD hath been given us O great and magnificent portion Let the world boast of and adore its gold its honours and its delights as much as it listeth we have that better part which alone is sufficient to make us eternally happy though we should be deprived of all the rest Christian if the world bereave you of what you have in its fee and jurisdiction consider it cannot take from you the inheritance of Saints If it deny you its Leeks and Onions and Flesh-pots it shall not be able to debarr you from that divine light which shineth on you and which in spight of all its attempts shall conduct you to your bliss-ful Canaan If it take from you its honours if it drive you even out of its earth it shall not be able to wrest the Kingdom of the Son of GOD from you nor sequester that dignity and glory which you possess in it This is not a corruptible Kingdom it 's not like those of the earth that are subject to a thousand and a thousand disgraces miseries and mutations It 's an immortal Kingdom firmer than the Heavens so abundant in glory and in goodness that it changeth all those who have part in it into Kings and Priests Faithful Brethren content we our selves with so advantageous a portion Let us enjoy it for the present by a lively and an establisht hope sweetly bearing the incommodities of this small journey we take to get to it and patiently expect that blessed day on which our Heavenly Father having finished the work of His grace will raise us all up into His glory and put on our heads the crownes of life and immortality which he hath promised us in the eternal Communion of His well-beloved Son To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit the true and only GOD blessed for ever be all honour and praise to Ages of Ages Amen THE VI. SERMON COL I. Ver. XIV Vers XIV In whom we have redemption by His blood to wit the remission of sins DEar Brethren As the true and thorough knowledge of that great Redeemer whose remembrance we are at this day to celebrate is the only foundation of the piety and salvation of men in like manner on the contrary ignorance of His person of His offices and of His benefits is the source of those errors and abuses which have corrupted religion and consequently of that unhappiness into which the unbelieving the profane the superstitious and the heretical do fall We may say to all these people Joh. 4.10 as our LORD sometime did to the woman of Samaria If you knew who He is that speaks to you in our Gospel you would ask of Him the refreshment and consolation of your souls and He would give you living water 1 Cor. 2.8 springing up to everlasting life And as St. Paul said of the ancient Jews that if they had known the wisdom of GOD they would never have crucified the LORD of glory So may we say to all the enemies of Godliness in general that if they knew JESUS the Wisdom and Word of the Father they would not wrong either His truth or those that make profession of it JESUS rightly and throughly known believed and apprehended is enough to expell errour doubt superstition vice and death from our hearts and to establish truth peace joy holiness and salvation in them Accordingly you see that Paul the master of the whole world the Minister of truth the teacher of life and happiness for the executing of this high commission and opening the eyes of His gentiles and bringing them from the power of Satan unto GOD protesteth he determined to know nothing among them but JESUS CHRIST Crucified He findeth in this rich and inexhaustible subject all that was necessary for him to convert Infidels to confirm believers to comfort the afflicted to reduce the strayed and recover such as had erred He finds in it wherewith to confute the Philosophy of the Pagans wherewith to abase the presumption of the Jews wherewith to instruct the ignorant and to convince the intelligent It 's with the sole science of this JESUS that He plucketh men off from idolatry and sets them free from the slavery of vice It 's with the same again that he reformeth the abuses and cureth the wounds which errour hath caused in the Church It is his weapon against enemies without
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
and Powers let us conclude that it must be taken as in other places where it is couched after the same manner simply and absolutely that is to say taken for the first and not the second Creation If there be liberty to do otherwise and to give it any where the sense we please without other reason then that of our own fond imagination who seeth not but that by such an overture there will be no longer any thing certain or assured left in Scripture For as these Hereticks by this cavilling gloss would deprive the LORD JESUS of the glory of the first Creation another might bereave the Father of it by the same means interpreting the passages of Scripture which affirm that GOD created the world not of its first Production by which it came out of nothing into being but mearly of a Reparation or a Renovation of the Universe and in consequence hereof pretend with some Philosophers that it was surely long before it was created but not in the condition and the form it afterward obtained But GOD forbid that Christians should ever suffer impiety to have such a licence over the Word of GOD. Let us keep religiously to the truths which the Scriptures teach us and receive their language with a candid and and sincere belief Let Heresie rise in commotion and be as unquiet as it will since the Apostle the mouth of Heaven and the trumpet of GOD proclaimeth That all things were created by the LORD JESVS receive we this sacred Verity believe it and confess it so much the rather for that it is not here alone but in divers other places beside that the Scripture teacheth it us For not to repeat here that which we touch'd afore out of the Epistle to the Ephesians where it is said That the Father created all things by JESVS CHRIST what can be said more expresly or directly then that we read in the beginning of S. John where this Divine Author speaking of the Word which was made flesh and whose glory himself and his Fellow-brethren saw and who was in the beginning with GOD saith aloud That all things were made by Him and without Him was not any thing made that was made and that the world was made by Him What can be uttered or conceived more clear than what we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews where the Apostle not content to have said at the entrance That the Father made the Worlds by his Son doth say of the Son a little after what the Prophet singeth LORD thou hast founded the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the works of thine hands Hebr. 1.10 Certainly this proof is so firm that all the Devils of Hell shall never be able to pluck it from us And nothing can be imagined more bruitish than that evasion which despair hath here inspir'd the Hereticks withal Though say they the Apostle have alledged these words of the Psalm yet his intention was not to apply them to CHRIST but the following words only Thou remainest and art the same and thy years shall not fail For is not this a plain giving the Apostle the lye who directly affirmeth that it is to the Son the holy Spirit saith LORD in the beginning thou hast laid the foundations of the earth Besides if this alledging of the Psalm do infer nothing else but that the Son is permanent and shall not fail it will be impertinent and not at all suffice for the Apostle's design in this place For his aim is to exalt the Son above the Angels but if the passage he brings for this purpose do conclude only that the Son is immortal and immutable who sees not that by this reckoning he attributes nothing to Him but what agreeth to the Angels also whose nature is likewise incorruptible and immutable Since then the Scope of the Apostle is to shew that JESUS CHRIST hath qualities which appertain not to the Angels and since on the other side the passage he alledgeth doth represent nothing of that kind but the creating of the world it must of necessity be acknowledged that it is the holy Apostle's intention to apply to the LORD principally this first part of the place wherein is said That He hath founded the earth and that the heavens are the work of His hands And so you see that the Supreme Wisdom begotten of the Father before all Ages which neither is nor can be any other than the LORD JESUS doth protest in the Book of Proverbs that it was with GOD its Eternal Father Prov. 3. when He created the World to shew us that it was the Governess and Superintendant of that great work And Moses represents it to us in the beginning of Genesis as far as the nature of the time and of the Old Testament would suffer For he reporteth GOD not creating any thing but by his Word He sheweth Him speaking at every part of His Work GOD said Let there be light GOD said Let there be a Firmament GOD said Let the waters be divided and let the day land appear and so in all the rest Whence comes it that so sage a Writer makes this Supreme and unspeakable Nature speak thus for the creating of each of His Works Let the Jew toil himself to the utmost he will never be able to give us a good and pertinent reason of it John 1.1 such as may content our minds But S. John calling the Son of GOD the Word unvails this secret to us shewing us that it is by this His Word the Father did create the world And Moses to signifie it mystically and in such sort as became that time represents GOD not creating ought but by speaking Be it then concluded against the obstinate fury of Hereticks that the LORD JESUS is the Creator of all things And this is so clear that the most part of those very men that deny His Eternal Divinity have not refused to acknowledge it as they in particular who after the name of their old Leader are commonly called Arrians these avouching that it is by Him the Father created the Universe at the beginning yet forbear not to deny that He is Eternal GOD of the same Essence with the Father Wherein as I confess they shew more modesty than the rest not having the forehead to reject what the Scripture doth so clearly exhibite So I must needs say they discover less perceivance and acuteness admitting a truth incompatible with the error which they hold For if the LORD JESUS did create the world as they say in concurrence with the Scripture do confess it must of necessity be granted that He is very JEHOVAH whom in time past Israel did adore which notwithstanding is the thing that they oppose This consequence appears first from what we noted afore That the Scripture never ascribes the action of Creating to any but GOD only Secondly from that in Isaiah the title of Creator is given to the true GOD to distinguish Him from creatures
towards His Church For He enliveneth all the members of it from the greatest even to the least and gives them not the power and authority only as Princes give their subjects but the very strength and ability to act communicating to each of His faithful ones such a measure of His Spirit as is necessary for sensation and motion and all the other functions of heavenly life as St. Paul teacheth us in the Epistle to the Ephesians and more at large in the First to the Corinthians Eph. 4. 1 Cor. 12. Moreover the Head hath this advantage above the rest of the body that it is of a more exquisite constitution and temper than the other members according to the rule that nature prudently observes in general which is to frame those things best that are designed to the choiâ—est employments Kings and Captains do deserve also the name of Heads in this respect their dignity being very high-raised above their subjects But their advantage in this particular is nothing in comparison of that which JESUS CHRIST hath above His Church not only by His being incomparably more holy more wise and more powerful than any of all the faithful but especially in that He is GOD blessed for ever Finally as you see the Head is placed highest in the body of man this scituation being necessary for its commodious exercising the functions of its government a thing that Kings and Princes imitate dwelling ordinarily in Palaces and sitting on Thrones raised above the houses and seats of their subjects so JESUS CHRIST hath this advantage but in a far greater degree sitting on high in the Heavens upon the Throne of GOD above the whole Church both militant and triumphant And whereas He conversed sometime on earth that was only for a while and by dispensation for the good of His body which obliged Him to do it even as the head boweth down it self somtimes when the necessity of any of its members doth require it But the proper and natural place of JESUS CHRIST is that lofty Sanctuary of immortality where He now appears in highest glory from thence governing by His Spirit all the parts of this mystical body of the Church both those that are in Heaven and those that are yet on earth Thus My Brethren you see wherein this dignity of our LORD JESUS doth consist and with how much reason St. Paul expresseth it here and otherwhere by saying that He is the head of the Church Whence evidently follows what the Apostle also evidently says that the Church is the body of CHRIST For if JESUS CHRIST be call'd the Head thereof for having and exercising towards it all the functions and prerogatives of a natural Head towards its members it is clear that the Church must also be called His body since this whole Divine society depends on JESUS CHRIST and receives of Him all the light all the aptitude all the sense and motion that it hath Upon this doctrine of the Apostle we have divers things to consider before we pass any further First by fixing this position he timely fortifies the Colossians against that errour which we shall find Him expresly opposing hereafter the errour of those that would subject the faithful to Angels and to Moses introducing into the Church the worshipping of the one and the Pedagogy of the other For since the Son of GOD is the Head of this sacred society who seeth not that it ought to depend on Him alone that 't is to Him it oweth its obedience and service and of Him it ought to receive its discipline and guidance But it must also be observed that the Apostle giveth this title to JESUS CHRIST with a design to glorifie Him enroling it among the other praises of His Soveraign dignity Indeed since the Church is the most Divine society in the world since it is acompany of Kings of Priests and of Prophets the Assembly of the first-fruits and a new world much more excellent than the old a world immortal and incorruptible it is evident that to be the Head thereof is a quality more sublime then to have been the Creator and Prince of the Universe at first Whereby you see in the third place how unrighteous to say no more the rashness of those is who give this name to another beside JESUS CHRIST acknowledging a mortal man for the true Head of the universal Church Let them colour this usurpation how they will they shall not be able to justifie it This is evidently to despoil JESUS CHRIST of His royal robe and to take the Diadem from Him which none but He can bear They alledge that the Scripture verily communicates to others beside JESUS CHRIST the names of Pastor of Priest and of Teacher and of Light and such others It is true but it never gives that of Head of the Church to any but Him And the difference of these titles is evident the former signifying charges whereof the faithful do exercise some portion and some shadow whereas that of Head of the Church signifies the Supremacy which is incommunicable to any other but the Son of GOD. As you see that in a State the name of Prince and of Governour and Captain and others of like sort are not given to the King only they pertain to others also But no other may be called the Soveraign or the Head of the State besides Him without incurring the guilt of Sacriledge or Treason Yet they endeavour to excuse them and say they make the Pope but the ministerial and subordiate Head not an essential and soveraign one But this is nothing but words arising from their interest and not founded in the truth of things There is no Prince that would be satisfied with such language if any one of his subjects that had made himself the head and Monarch of His State should alledge for his excuse that he had no intention save to pass for a ministerial head In the nature of men whence this similitude is taken we see no bodies that have two heads of a different rank and if any such be found at any time they are accounted for monsters which cannot be said of the Church the most perfect master-piece of all the works of GOD. In a word it is not enough to say that the Pope is the ministerial head of the Church it must be proved We plainly read in Scripture that JESUS CHRIST is Head of the Church Let us believe it and adore Him under that quality But that there is another head in the Church be he visible or invisible be he ministerial or soveraign this we meet not with at all in the writings of the Apostles not to say that we meet with divers things in them wherewith such a doctrine is incompatible Faith is by hearing and hearing by the word of GOD. Let it therefore be permitted us to suspend our believing this other pretended head of the Church since we have heard nothing of it in the word of GOD. But that which the
elsewhere That GOD hath reconciled us to Himself by JESVS CHRIST But it seems that this is not precisely that Reconciliation which S. Paul meaneth here First because the things in heaven which he expresly puts among the parties reconciled have no part therein the Angels that dwell in the Heavens pure and holy as they are having never fallen into any alienation from GOD. Secondly because of that Reconciliation the Apostle will speak instantly in the words immediately following in which he saith Having made peace by the blood of His cross so as the former words must of necessity be referred to some other Reconciliation except we will render the language of this Divine Writer culpable of a vain and fruitless repetition The truth is they that understand these words of Reconciliation with GOD do find themselves much intangled in the matter and have recourse to divers means for clearing them of this difficulty Some affirm that though the Angels be holy and blessed yet they were not exempt from needing the death of JESUS CHRIST to merit and obtain their confirmation and perseverance in the estate they had a bold Doctrine and such as it is hard to find any foundation for in the Scripture For by this reckoning JESUS CHRIST should also be the Mediator of Angels a thing that seems to cross the end and the true nature of this Office First because a Mediator should partake of the nature of the parties whom he reconcileth as you see that JESUS CHRIST the Mediator between GOD and men is GOD and man whereas He took not the nature of Angels Secondly because every Mediator interveneth between parties that are at difference whereas the Angels are and ever were at perfect accord with GOD holily obeying His will Lastly because the blood of JESUS CHRIST was shed only to wash away sin and the Scripture every where represents the people of GOD's Covenant His redeemed ones and those whom He hath saved as justified and cleansed from their filth for which there was no place in the nature of Angels they being pure and clean from all sin For as to that of Job That GOD putteth no trust in His servants Job 4.18 and doth set light by his Angels it is evident and acknowledged by all Christians that this is not said to accuse those blessed Spirits or to suggest that if they were tried by the ordinary and legal justice of GOD they would be found guilty and have need of pardon but rather to signifie either that the Authority of GOD over His creatures is so great and so absolute as He oweth nothing to the Angels themselves how exquisite soever their Sanctity be the light of glory wherewith He crowns them being a gift from His own bounty and not the due reward of their merit or else that the infinite purity of this Supreme Majestie is so splendid and so glorious that the light of the most holy Spirits fadeth before Him and is found dusky and defective in comparison of Him as the shining of our lights and of the Stars themselves doth disappear at the brightness of the Sun Others therefore not able to savour and for just cause I think this Doctrine that the Angels were reconciled to GOD by JESUS CHRIST to exclude them from this passage do restrain the Apostle's words to men only understanding by the things that are in Heaven the already hallowed spirits of the faithful which death had taken out of this world and by the things that are on earth the faithful that yet live here beneath in flesh But not to dissemble this Exposition seemeth both forced and frigid Forced because the Scripture by things in heaven ordinarily meaneth the Angels whose element and natural habitation as you know the heavens are whereas souls separated from their bodies are receiv'd in and lodged there by a Supernatural grace and dispensation Frigid because the sense it attributeth to the Apostle no way answers the sublimity and dignity of his words For if his aim were to express nothing but that the faithful are reconciled to GOD what need was there to divide them into two ranks some that are on the earth others that are in the heavens Who doubts but He reconciled these as well as those But without question he purposed to magnifie this work of GOD by JESUS CHRIST and to this end saith that it extendeth not to men alone that are reconciled to the Father by the efficacy of the cross of the LORD but that it hath effect in heaven it self re-uniting and reconciling the things that are there What shall we say then to these difficulties and in what sense shall we take the Apostle's words That GOD hath reconciled all things in Himself both those that are on earth and those that are in heaven Dear Brethren we will leave them in their genuine and ordinary sense and say that these expressions do signifie the recomposing and re-uniting of the creatures both Terrestrial and Celestial not with GOD but among themselves with each other For as in a State the Subjects have a twofold union one with their Prince on whom thy all depend another among themselves being as members of the same Political Body joyned together by the bond of mutual concord amity and correspondence In like manner is it with things Celestial and Terrestrial the two principal parties of this great State of GOD's which we cal the Universe Besides the union they have with GOD as their Soveraign Monarch from whose bounty they receive the being and the life they enjoy they have another alliance and conjunction one with the other as parts of one Corporation having been formed and qualified for mutual commerce It 's in this relation and in this union that the beauty and perfection of the Universe doth consist when Heaven and earth have amicable entercourse and conspire to one and the same end with an holy and a reciprocal affection Sin having broken the first union and separated man from his Creator by the same means dissolved the second loosning us from the creatures For as again in a state when one part of the Subjects riseth against the Sovereign the rest that remain in their duty presently break with the Rebels and instead of the commerce they held before with them do make cruel and implacable war upon them while they continue in their disobedience Such hath the event proved in the world Man had no sooner rebell'd against GOD but heaven and all that remained in His obedience brake with man Whole Nature took up arms against this Rebel and would have even then utterly ruin'd him if the Counsel of GOD who would not destroy us had not hindred it And as from one disorder there never fail to spring up divers others this first rupture of man with GOD and the good Creatures brought forth divers others indeed rending mankind it self into several pieces the one divided from the other by diversity of Religions and the aversions and animosities that attend it
all this for it was founded upon a Rock But on the contrary he compares the second sort to a foolish man that built upon the sand And saith he when the rain fell and the torrents came and the winds blew and smote upon this house it fell and the fall thereof was great Dear Brethren this is an excellent Parable and worthy to be deeply engraven on the hearts of the truly faithful For it shews us first That to have part in the LORD's salvation it is not enough to call Him our Master and make Profession of His Discipline They that have but this will fall sooner or later and be infallibly ruin'd Secondly It further teacheth us That it sufficeth not to have begun except a man do presevere to the end without ever giving back And lastly It declares to us what the cause is both of the perseverance of some and of the revolting and fall of others those that are founded on the rock do stand firm and resist the scandals with which the Devil and the world do combate the truth those that are built only on the sand are easily born down even at the first assaults which the adverse powers make upon them This Doctrine S. Paul yerst represented to the Colossians in the Text we have now read to you In the words foregoing as you heard in its place he did set before their eyes the wonders of the love of GOD which had been gloriously shewed upon them by JESUS CHRIST their Saviour who had called them to His Communion and of strangers and enemies as they were made them friends of His Father reconciling them by the body of His flesh through His death to render them holy without spot and unreproveable before Him But the Apostle knowing there were Seducers and deceitful workers among them who laboured to turn them away from the purity and simplicity of the Gospel that they might be preserv'd from those mens poysons he now advertiseth them that this great salvation whereof he had spoken could not be assured to them without perseverance For qualifying and in some sort correcting His simple and absolute assertion That GOD had reconciled them to Himself he addeth the condition upon which this Divine grace was promis'd them If indeed saith he you continue in the faith being founded and firm c. This Lesson my Brethren is no less necessary for us than it was erewhile for the Colossians since the floods the winds and storms that were then raised against the Edifice of their faith do in like manner at this day beat upon ours divers deceitful workers both without and within endeavouring to overthrow it Take we therefore this sacred Preservative against their malice which the Apostle here giveth us and that we may the better make our profit of it let us meditate in order the three particulars which his Instruction containeth For to confirm the Colossians in perseverance he sheweth them first The necessity and the manner of it in those words If indeed you continue in the faith being founded and firm and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel which you have heard Secondly He sets before them an excellent Argument of the truth of that Gospel which they had heard to wit That it was preached in all the world And lastly He further alledgeth a second proof of its verity taken from his own Ministry of which saith he I have been made a Minister These are three points we will handle if it please GOD in this action noting briefly upon each of them what we shall judge most proper for our Edification and Consolation As for the first the Apostle explains himself about it in those terms If indeed ye continue c. Where you see he lays down first As Above That Faith is the means by which we enter into possession and use of the good things of OOD which He promiseth us in His Son The old Covenant had also its good things but the condition which it required of men for their obtaining the same was quite different For it demanded of them an exact and perfect obeying of the Law and upon any failure of an entire accomplishing of the same threatned a curse leaving the sinner no hope of life at all according to that dreadful clause Do these things and thou shalt live and Cursed is every one that doth them not But the Gospel beside that the good things which it sets before us are much greater and more Divine than those of the Law differs moreover from the Law in this especially that it demands of men for their having them nothing but Faith * Only 1 alone according to the sentence of our LORD GOD so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life This the Apostle sheweth us here with much clearness when having said That GOD hath reconciled us to Himself by the body of the flesh of His Son to render us spotless and unreproveable he addeth If indeed ye continue in the faith This Connexion of the two parts of his Discourse doth evidently infer that it is Faith which makes us to have part in the Reconciliation and Peace of GOD and in the holiness which is by the Gospel So likewise you know that in a multitude of other places the Scripture informeth us expresly that it is by Faith we are justified and have peace with GOD and that it is by Faith our hearts are purified Faith is the means of our union with GOD it is the root of our Charity and the Source of our comfort and in a word the only cause of our felicity For as a Medicine how excellent and healthful soever it be does no good save to those that take it So the LORD's Redemption and the vertue of His Sacrifice how great and infinite soever though able to heal all our sins and to give us Eternity yea not us alone but to all the men in the world yet notwithstanding will communicate none of those benefits to us except we receive it by Faith It is Faith that applies it to us and sheds abroad the efficacy of it into all the parts of our nature But because very many deceive themselves in this matter and take that for true Faith which hath but the shadow and name of Faith the Apostle telleth us that to have part in the salvation of JESUS CHRIST our faith must be constant and such as we do abide and persevere in For as in Games and Combates for Prizes none are crowned but they that hold out to the end So in the heavenly Lists or Race GOD glorifieth them only which run with constancy home to the mark Those that turn aside or stop in the midst of the course lose their labour according to that the LORD did declare Whoever shall persevere to the end shall be saved And therefore the Apostle in another place assuring himself of the Crown among other causes on
countrymen and also by the Gentiles He was beaten imprisoned scourged stoned He was in shipwracks on the Sea in dangers and deaths upon the Land He was brought to be at the mercy of robbers in desarts beset round in cities both with weapons of enemies and the ambushments of false friends He was reduced to nakedness to cold to hunger and thirst It 's this hard and terrible chain of labours and sufferings which he meaneth here when he saith Whereunto I also labour combating But Oh the deep humility of this holy Soul he immediately gives the glory of these merveilous exploits to the sole vertue and assistance of the LORD JESUS I labour and combat saith he according to His efficacy which worketh powerfully in me He exerciseth the like modesty elsewhere when having said that he had laboured abundantly more than they all he presently takes up himself and adds yet not I but the grace of GOD which is with me It is the invincible force of this grace of the LORD JESUS which he calleth here his efficacy and he saith it worketh powerfully in him or with power to signifie the admirable effects which it produced in him first in that it raised up in Him the light of knowledge the love of holiness charity towards the LORD's flock such prudence and wisdom as were necessary for the instruction and government of souls Secondly in that it endued him with a more than humane courage with an immoveable constancy and firmness both that he might not sink under the burden of such great and continual labour and that he might patiently and cheerfully bear the persecutions and tentations which were still let loose upon him the LORD making things tend to His glory and the advancement of his work which seemed so contrary thereto as He promised him elsewhere that His power should be made perfect in his infirmity Thirdly in accompanying the Apostles preaching with diverse miracles which ravished men and authorised his words Rom. 15.18 19 as he expresly testifies in another place I will not dare to speak of any of those things which CHRIST hath not wrought by me saith he to make the Gentiles obedient by word and work through mighty signs and wonders Lastly this Divine vertue of our Saviour did also magnificently appear in the success he gave to Pauls labour opening the hearts of those that heard him and causing his voice to enter into them notwithstanding all the impediments of nature with such a miraculous blessing that he made his Gospel to abound from Jerusalem and round about even to Illyricum subduing nations and converting them gloriously to the service of His Master It 's this that he represents here to the Colossians in these words even that he laboureth and combateth according to the efficacy of CHRIST which worketh powerfully in him And it excellently conduceth to his design which is to shew the truth of the Gospel he preached which shined forth clearly in those many miracles they being as seals by which the LORD confirmed it I confess now that this great example doth particularly reflect on such as GOD hath called to the sacred Ministry of His house and it sheweth them on one hand how painful their office is that it is a work as the Apostle faith otherwhere a work I say rather than a dignity 1 Tim. 3.1 2 Tim. 4.5 a labour and not a recreation For the discharging of it worthily they must toil and strive watch in all things endure afflictions and do the work of Evangelists And it teacheth them on the other hand that they must not recoil for those great difficulties but trust in the grace of CHRIST and expect from the sole efficaciousness of His assistance that light that strength that patience and constancy which is requisite for the finishing of so laborious a course since it is He alone who rendreth us meet for these things strengthning us in weakness comforting us in trouble encouraging us in difficulties susteining us under assaults and so conducting us that though we be nothing of our selves 2 Cor. 3.5 yet in Him we can do all things who maketh us able to be Ministers of the new Testament But though S. Pauls example do particularly respect Pastors yet it appertaineth also to all true Christians in general since there is no one of them but is also in some sort the LORD's servant hath of Him the managing of some of His Talents and is called to labour and combat Let us consider then all of us in common and joyntly make our improvement both of the preaching and of the labouring of this great Apostle He still at this day declares to us the same CHRIST whom he preached heretofore to all the nations of the world Though the Organs that sound it to you be incomparably weaker than his were yet it is his word that you hear the same word and the same CHRIST that yer-while converted the universe The same Paul whose voyce had then so much efficacy speaks yet to you daily He addresseth to you the same doctrine He sets before you the same wisdom He admonisheth and teacheth every man among you Do not abuse so great a blessing do not frustrate the labour of this holy man of it's true and just effect The end of His preaching is that you all may be perfect This is the mark to which he calls you all in common Say not to me that he speaks but to some only I admonish saith he and teach every man that I may render every man perfect in JESVS CHRIST Object not the employments which you have in the world nor the cares to which your family and your affairs do bind you up If they be incompatible with that perfection which the Apostle requires of you you must renounce them It 's an extreme folly to excuse ones self from being happy This ought to be the first and last of our cares and if we cannot attain it but by quitting of honours by losing of riches by retrenching our delights yea as the LORD saith by plucking out our own eyes and cutting off of our feet and our hands it is better to forego all this than keep it to be cast at our departure hence into the torment of eternal fire But these are vain and meer frivolous pretences to palliate our slackness If we have truly received JESUS CHRIST into our hearts neither a wife nor children nor a family nor an estate nor the honest and lawfull employments of the world will hinder you from being perfect The fear of GOD honest deportment plain-dealing and justice charity and beneficence and in a word the fanctity wherein our perfection consisteth is not incompatible with any of these things For I beseech you is it your business or your calling which obligeth you to offend GOD and injure men to pollute your body with the filth of infamous pleasures to defraud or to rob your neighbour to drown your whole life in luxury in debauches and in
from them complaints and crys against your carriages that you consolate the pains they take for you by your resentment of the same and above all by your progress in the studious pursuit of piety For this is the only fruit they crave of all their cares and their combats they would account them most advantagiously recompenced if you do but profit by them if they perceive by the goodness of your manners and the sanctity of your life that they have not labored in vain But do not imagin I pray that their sollicitude doth discharge you of all care On the contrary it sheweth you with what earnestness and assiduity you should labor for your own Salvation For if they must heed your affairs with so much diligence what zeal should you put forth about them your selves Their travel may awaken and hearten you but it cannot save you except you travel your selves Their combating will win you no Crown if you take not part in it after their example Every one shall live by his own faith and no person be crowned for the zeal of his Pastor or his brother If your Pastors watch if they stand on their guard if they labour and combat blessed be GOD they shall receive their pay But their labouring will not excuse your loytering nor will their heedfulness justifie you neglects Every man shall bear his own burthen they may give you the example of their piety they will not be able to communicate to you the recompences of it Employ we then our selves both the one and the others Pastors and flocks about our Salvation with fear and trembling Let us all combat with Paul if we will be crowned with him Imitate we his Charity if we desire to partake in his Glory Let us extend our cares and our love as he did not only to the saithful whom we know but even to those whom we never saw For carnal amities I confess it is bodily sight and presence which enkindles and maintains them The eyes of the flesh are the authors and the preservers of them But in those of JESUS CHRIST it is otherwise It 's the Spirit that knits them It is its eye and its sight that causeth them both to begin and to continue For since it is properly JESUS CHRIST and His Gospel that Charity loveth it is evident that it ought to embrace all those which bear the marks of them whether they be absent or present The distance of times and places doth not hinder these sacred commerces The Apostle combateth even for those that had never seen him Let us also then love all true Christians and spread our affections as far as to those whom many Seas and many Mountains sever from us Let us combate for them by prayer and do them how far off soever they be from us all the Offices whereof our Charity shall be capable travelling with holy tenderness for the salvation and edification of one another But having considered St. Paul's combat let us now examine the end and design of it Whence comes it holy Apostle that thou takest so much pains and hast these Colossians and Laodiceans and even those that never saw thee so neer thy heart Why doth this carefulness follow thee to the very prison and come there to aggravate and invenom thy personal sufferings Why labourest thou so for them To the end saith he that their hearts may be comforted they being joyned together in love and in all riches of full certainty of understanding unto the knowledg of the secret of our GOD and Father and of CHRIST Thus doth the Apostle answer our demand I am in pain saith he for their consolation and their faith I combat to preserve this treasure to them and to prevent the enemies snatching out of their hands so precious and so necessary a possession By saying he combats for them that they may keep these Graces He sheweth That they were in danger to lose them if the enemies they had that is the Seducers and false Apostles did accomplish their design and perswade these faithful people to those errors which they were setting forth In effect it is evident that their doctrine of man's Justification by ceremonies and observations whether legal or humane is incompatible with the truth of the Gospel doth disturb the comfort of the faithful break the bond of charity confoundeth and embroileth the mystery of JESUS CHRIST bereaveth Him of His glory and of His plentifulness representing Him as poor and scanty and as needing the succour either of Moses or of Philosophy and the superstition of men to give us Salvation The Apostle nameth three things which he wisheth unto these Believers and which he would keep for them by his cares and combats Consolation of heart Conjunction in charity and the riches of a full certainty of understanding or as he expresseth the same thing in other terms knowledg of the secret of our GOD and Father and of CHRIST The first of these to wit Comfort of heart is the happiness of the faithful upon earth For it is that calm and tranquillity which their souls enjoy amidst the tempests of this life when they sweetly repose themselves upon their Master's word and are assured to partake of His Salvation notwithstanding the menaces and persecutions of the enemy and the defects and imperfections of their own course All heresie and error in Religion doth necessarily disturb this consolation because it shakes the truth and certainty of the doctrine of the Gospel upon which it is founded But the error which the Apostle sets himself to oppose did particularly strike at this part of our Salvation depriving consciences of that peace which faith in JESUS CHRIST doth afford them and casting them into a miserable agitation in that it makes their justification to depend on I know not what observances that are either vain and unprofitable or even impious and pernicious It 's this that animates S. Paul to combat it so vigorously every where because the faithful could not receive it without losing their true consolation that is their only hearts-good And this should make us jealous for the purity of the Gospel to keep it free from all admixture of error Let us not hearken unto those who tell us that if what they have added to the Gospel do displease us yet we cannot deny but they retain JESUS CHRIST and the foundations of our Salvation in Him It is a most evident delusion I confess that JESUS CHRIST giveth Salvation and Consolation but He doth it to those that embrace Him as He presents Himself to us on His Cross and in His Gospel naked and without adulteration and composition If you will have either vice or superstition with Him He will serve you for nothing save to augment your condemnation As food how good and wholsome soever it be will no less then kill you if it be mingled with poyson We must either receive JESUS CHRIST alone or renounce His Salvation There is no possibility to
float in your head to be pluckt away by an enemy on the first occasion It must be engraven on your heart with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond that is you should be so firmly perswaded of it as nothing may be able to efface it and enfeeble your belief of it I know well every one boasteth to be so But there is a great difference between words and things themselves Shew it me by your lives and I will credit it If you be fully perswaded of the truth of the Gospel How is it that you have not the charity which it so necessarily commandeth us How do you hate men whom it commandeth you to love and love the vices which it enjoyneth you to hate Let us lay by words and possess in deed that full certainty of understanding which the Apostle wisheth us This is the true way for us to abide all joyned together in charity to conflict with and overcome our enemies to edifie and preserve our friends to attract those that are without to retain those that are within to enjoy much consolation in all the trials of this world and to obtain in the end the Salvation and the glory of the other through the grace of our LORD and Saviour JESUS CHRIST To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit the true and only GOD be all honour praise and glory to ages of ages Amen The SEVENTEENTH SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER III. Vers III. In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and Knowledg IGnorance of the natures and qualities of the LORD JESUS is the source of all the errors and heresies which have exercis'd the Christian Church from its beginning down to this day 1 Cor. 2.9 And as S. Paul said of the rulers of the Jews that if they had known the true wisdom they would never have crucify'd the LORD of Glory So may we say of the authors of all the false and pernicious Doctrines which men have lusted to introduce into Religion that if they had duly known JESUS CHRIST they would not have ever troubled the Church I pass by the scourges of the first ages the impiety of the Arrians and the Dokites the extravagancy of the Nestorians and the Eutychians together with the numberless branches of the one and the others they all evidently sprung from ignorance of the true being of our LORD JESUS CHRIST and strike directly at Him ruining either His natures by attributing to Him the one a created and imperfect Divinity the others an imaginary and phantastique Humanity or His Person some of them dividing others confounding the natures which are united in it From the same original its clear have come those abuses and disorders which had the vogue in the following ages and which raising themselves by little and little from weak and obscure beginnings have at last got a superiority and suffocated the genuine simplicity and verity of the Gospel Hence proceeded that invocation of Saints which is at this day practised throughout all the Roman Communion Hence hath issued that second sacrifice which they call of the Altar and wherein the heart of Religion is made to consist If men had rightly known the excellency of our LORD's mediation and the effectual extent of His Cross they would never have address'd them to any other Intercessor never have had recourse to any other oblation From the said ignorance also as from a common spring of error have flowed in among people satisfactions and merits of condignity and congruity and indulgences and the rules and odly various Disciplines of Monks and in summ all Superstitions If people had well known what an one JESUS CHRIST is they would have been assuredly content with His Satisfaction and with his infinite merit and with that eternal indulgence which He hath purchas'd for all that believe and with the perfection of His Gospel Hence again hath come the setting up of another Head in the militant Church to be there as the Vicar and coadjutor of JESUS CHRIST If this JESUS whom the Father hath given over all things for an Head to the Church if the fulness of His power and of His wisdom and His infinite love had been well known never had this second Monarchy been erected in His Kingdom In fine we may say to these and to all others that err in Religion Joh. 4.10 as sometime our LORD Himself said to the Samaritan If you knew the gift of GOD and who this JESUS is that speaketh to you in His Scriptures you would seek all your Salvation in Him alone and demand of none besides Him any of the things that are necessary for the refreshment and consolation of your Souls Judg faithful Brethren how much it concerneth us to know Him well and to have Him still before our eyes Since this knowledg sufficeth to secure us from error Accordingly you see with what care the Apostle S. Paul represents Him to us and with what affection he lays out before us all the marvels of this great and divine Subject He described Him before to the Colâ—ssians in a sublime manner and to fasten their hearts to Him alone shewed them that in Him is found all fulness But he contents not himself with this He now informes them further in the Text which you have heard that in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg In these few words there is a great deal of sense and truth Therefore we will employ this whole exercise in the explaining of them to you if GOD permit noting in order all that shall seem to us necessary both for the understanding of the Text and for the instruction and edification of your Souls I know well that the relative word whom is in the Original indifferently whom or which and may be referred either to JESUS CHRIST or to the Mystery of GOD whereof he spake just before if referred to the latter it is as if he had said that in this Mystery are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and I deny not but the words so construed do make a veritable sense it being certain that our LORD's Gospel here called His mystery is an inexhaustible treasury of all saving wisdom and knowledg But it is not needful to come to this and in my mind it s more pertinent and more fluent to refer this word to the Name of CHRIST which immediately preceded and to account the Apostle's meaning is that in JESUS CHRIST are hid these treasures which he doth intend Yet at the bottom as you shall see the sense is the same which way soever of the two you understand it And for a right conceiving of it we must first refute the exposition which some do give of this Text and then assert the true meaning There are some that take these words as if Paul would say that JESUS CHRIST knoweth all things and hath so rich and so abundant a knowledg that He is ignorant of nothing It 's a mistaking of the Apostle's
intention in this place But that which they add is yet worse For from this ill interpretation they infer a false and a dangerous doctrine concluding from our Saviour's having all the treasures of Knowledg that the infinite wisdom of His Divinity was really transfused into His humane nature and by consequent all the other properties also of the Divine nature as its omnipotency its infiniteness and its presence in all places since there is the same reason for all these attributes of GOD and they are so in separable that none can have one of them without possessing of the rest See I pray you how fruitful error is and how truly it was said by one of the ancient Sages of the world That one falsity and absurdity being supposed many others do necessarily follow upon it For that which hath led or to say better which hath drawn these authors into this long series of errors is nothing but a false opinion which they have about the Sacrament of the Eucharist They incommodiously and unreasonably suppose that the flesh of JESUS CHRIST is really present in the bread And this absurdity hath engaged them by little and little in those others that are so much worse For not being able to relish that Transubstantion which those of Rome make use of to uphold this real presence of our LORD's body and deservedly rejecting it as full of absurdities and contradictions yet bent to retain their own bad presupposition they have had recourse for the maintaining of it to another well nigh as great an error namely that of Ubiquity and do affirm that the body of JESUS CHRIST is every where present and consequently in the Eucharistical signes and to defend a thing so strange and so contrary to sense to reason and to Scripture they have advanced this conceit that the flesh of CHRIST through its Personal union with the Divinity hath really receiv'd all the properties thereof that is that the Son assuming it unto Himself hath rendred it omnipotent immense and infinite a thing which hath induced them to corrupt divers passages of the Word of GOD that they might form out of them some prop for their error It is not the place here to make a thorough refutation of their doctrine nor to lament at large such persons their deserting of the truth in this particular who are illuminated with the beams thereof in others Would to GOD we might bury a fault which hath caused so much scandal in Christendom in eternal oblivion I will only touch at the concernment of the Text in hand and their abuse of it for the favouring of their opinion I say then that in this ratiocination of theirs they commit two notable faults the one that they do not take the Apostle's meaning aright and the other that they conclude wrong And to begin at the latter of these they conclude wrong for from the being of an infinite science and knowledg in JESUS CHRIST it doth not follow that the Soul of His humane nature understandeth and knoweth all the things that God knoweth as from the being of an eternal Divinity in JESUS CHRIST it no way followeth that His flesh is an eternal Divinity or from His having created the World that his Flesh created it like as if at least we may compare Humane things with Divine from a man's having in him an immortal intellect it follows not at all that his body is intelligent or immortal For as in Man there are two Substances the Soul and the Body which though united in the same subject do nevertheless conserve each of them their Properties apart the Soul its spiritualness and invisibility the Body likewise its visibility and palpableness the one a capacity to understand and will the other not after the same manner there are two natures in JESUS CHRIST which though personally united yet are not mingled or confused one with the other But retain each of them their essential and original qualities in such sort that the Divine nature abideth eternal infinite omnipotent and omniscient and the humane created in time bounded in place and endowed with a limited strength power and science Now as when we say of man in general that there is understanding and sense in him that he hath a visible or invisible essence that he is mortal or immortal each of these attributions ought to be understood in reference to that part of his nature to which it agreeth and not be confusedly applied to them both So if the Apostle had said as I grant he truly might that there is in JESUS CHRIST an infinite power or knowledg it should be referred to His Divinity and not to His Humanity For JESUS CHRIST being very GOD blessed for ever with the Father who doubts but that in this regard He is omnipotent and omniscient But thence it follows not that He is so in regard of His humane nature too And for any to deduce it from that attribution is as impertinent reasoning as if because there is in JESUS CHRIST a flesh conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin and which was infirm and crucified you would inferr that therefore His Divinity was also born of the Holy Virgin and that it too was fastned to the Cross But though it should be granted them that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg are hid in the humane soul of JESUS CHRIST yet still they would conclude wrong to infer thence as they do that the knowledg of His Soul is infinite and the same with that of GOD. We confess that this blessed Soul having had the honour to be personally united with the Eternal Son of GOD hath also thereupon been adorned with all the shining light of knowledg and wisdom whereof its nature is capable so as it may be said in this respect that all the treasures of them are hidden in it and that the knowledg which it hath of things doth much surpass the knowledg of Men and Angels both for its extent and also for its clearness and firmness Yet the nature of the subject wherein it properly resideth being finite it self is also necessarily finite whereas the knowledg of the Father and of His eternal Word is infinite even as the nature of the one and the other is infinite And it is to no purpose to reply that by this accompt the humane nature of JESUS CHRIST will have no advantage above the Saints of whom it may be said in this sense that all the treasures of wisdom are hidden in them since GOD who dwelleth in them hath an infinite knowledg and wisdom For this consequence is evidently false First by reason of the extream difference which is found between the graces communicated to the Saints and the gifts of light and knowledg that are insused into the Soul of our Saviour Secondly by reason of the infinite difference that is between their persons for though GOD do dwell in the Saints by His grace yet no one of the Saints is GOD whereas the Eternal Word
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
verse immediately foregoing as you heard if you remember in our last Exercise upon this subject that in JESVS CHRIST are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg Now he sheweth them the design upon which he so instantly repeateth what he seemed to have sufficiently treated of in the precedent Texts Now this I say saith he that none may deceive you with words of perswasion And to give evidence that he did not put himself to this trouble vainly or rashly he adds in the following verse the knowledg that he had of their estate it being as really before his eyes as if he were upon the place For saith he though I am absent in body yet in spirit I am with you rejoycing and seeing your order and the firmness of your faith which you have in CHRIST Thus we shall have two points to handle for the giving you a full and entire understanding of this Text. First The Apostle's care of these Christians that they might not be seduced And Secondly The cognizance he took of their present state though he was in body far distant from them We will consider them both if GOD permit as briefly as we can pointing at what we judg useful for your edification and consolation both in the one and the other The first of these two points the Apostle expresseth in these words But this I say that none may deceive you by words of perswasion Upon which words we shall have two things to examine The danger the Colossians were in and the usefulness of that which the Apostle says to preserve them from incurring it The danger was great and the evil which it threatned grievous and mortal even the being deceived and seduced by the perswasive words which false Teachers used in this wretched design There never was any servants of CHRIST but such a tentation did beset them Satan no sooner seeing the truth of the Gospel any where appear but he immediately raiseth up Impostors to corrupt it and turn away those that embrace it from the purity and simplicity thereof But especially at the beginning of Christianity when it was first preached and sounded by the holy Apostles then there arose a multitude of seducers who did their utmost to deprave and marr this divine seed of the salvation of men and the Devil made like attempts in our Fathers days when perceiving the Gospel to be revived that he might presently obstruct this holy work he speedily brought into the field a world of spirits some audacious and extravagant others subtil and selfish which endeavoured to scandalize or to seduce the simple those by the prodigies of their fond imaginations these by the plausible appearances of their false accommodations But they which troubled the Church in the Apostle's time did address themselves among others to the Colossians in particular as appears both by what he intimateth briefly here and more clearly yet by what he addeth in the series of this Chapter He doth not name them but his saying that none deceive you is a sufficient evidence that there were some crastsmen of this quality about them who took pains to ensnare them It is therefore thâ—â—â— same he aimeth at and against the force of their seducements doth he arm the Colossians He sheweth here both the end to which they tended even the deceiving of the faithful and the means they used about it namely words of perswasion The term he pitcheth upon to express the first of these doth not signifie simply to deceive but to deceive by false and captious ratiocination For these bad men knowing well that the spirits of men are not brought to embrace nor avoid any thing without some reason it being the natural order and disposition of all our actions and motions that the understanding do still precede the will they begin the effecting of our ruin there and to entangle our minds in their errors they propose us reasons false indeed but appearing otherwise such as have the colour and countenance but not the essential form and substance of a good and solid discourse This the word Paralogism here used by the Apostle doth properly signifie It 's a sophism a false and spurious arguing which by its vain appearance and fallacious blaze leadeth men into error as those fatuous fires which rising sometimes in the dark of night do trail those that follow them into precipices Satan the Father of all Sophisters took this course first having miserably seduced our first Parents by the illusion of a false discourse the vanity whereof experience clearly demonstrated for that he might corrupt their will he attaqued their understandings in the first place and beguiled them that he might destroy them perswading that the forbidden fruit would make them like GOD. Those whom he hath set on work since that time have all followed this method there having never risen Heretick either under the Old or the New Testament but hath painted over his impostures with some deceivable reasons Only this difference may be observ'd among such men that some do the thing maliciously and against their own conscience others through ignorance The former sort are true children of the Devil and the most execrable of all men as combating that truth which they are conscious of and defending error by reasons whose vanity they well understand neverthelss they forbear not to labour in this unhappy desing either for the acquiring of glory to themselves or for creating trouble to Teachers of truth whom they have conceiv'd an hatred of Those of the other sort who do it through ignorance have less guilt and wickedness I confess but are no less dangerous For believing in good earnest the errors which they do advance they strive to perswade others to them with so much the more passion and fervency as imagining that they serve them when they indeed destroy them and that they edifie when in truth they ruin them Rom. 10.2 Such were those Jews of whom S. Paul beareth witness that they had a zeal of God but without knowledg They believ'd themselves the error which they recommended and were in those snares wherewith they sought to entangle others And in this rank we must place the most of those of the Roman Communion who take so much pains to draw us into their mistakes not only those of the people but also many of their Monks and of their Doctors who labour to deceive others because they have been themselves deceiv'd having run into that erroneous perswasion into which they would induce us and confirmed themselves from time to time in it by those sophisms and false reasonings which they offer us and which they have either learnt of their instructors or invented of themselves We must equally take heed of both these sorts of workers For how different soever the motive of their acting be the effect of it is ever the same even seduction and perdition And as poyson forbears not to kill the man that takes it though it have been ignorantly given
him by a person that know it not to be poyson who perchance took of it himself thinking it a remedy so error from whatever hand it come hath still a bad effect and the opinion they have of it who present it to us doth not change the venom of it nor impede its corrupting of our souls and extinguishing Divine life in us if we do receive it But the Apostle in this place pointeth out the means also which false Teachers use for the setting up of their errors That none saith he may deceive you by words of perswasions These he calls elsewhere in the same case sweet and flattering words Rom. 16.18 saying in his Epistle to the Romans that Schismaticks and such as make divisions contrary to the doctrine we have learned do seduce the hearts of the simple by sweet and flattering words 1 Cor. 2.4 And this he nameth again elsewhere the enticing words of man's wisdom Under these terms he comprehendeth all the advantages and attractives of discourse all that it hath in it which is apt to touch and win hearts as either probable reasons wherewith it is furnisht or beauty of terms and expressions or artificial disposition and graceful pronunciation There is none but knows how potent these charms of eloquence are They sometimes dazzel the best eyes and do deceive the firmest minds It 's a kind of Magick and Enchantment which makes things appear quite otherwise than they are and gives them colours and qualities that are not their own which maketh Honey pass for Wormwood and Wormwood for Honey black for white and white for black There is no cause so good but this kind of illusion overthrows nor so bad but it establisheth There is no affection which it doth not allay nor bâ—lâ—â—f which it doth not shake nor resolution which it doth not break It hath often 〈◊〉 the innocent to be condemned and the nocent absolved with applause 'T is by its sleights that truth how invincible soever it be hath sometimes seemed to be vanquished 'T is to its dexterity and its stratagems that error and falshood do we the greatest part of their lying-triumphs For feeling themselves in reality weak they have recourse ordinarily to this kind of Sorcery that they may carry by its illusions what they could never win by true and legitimate strength 'T is it that maintaineth Sophisters and Wranglers and Mountebanks and Seducers With the sophistry and prattle which it lendeth them they have the hardiness to shew themselves and to oppose the clearest truths and recommend the grossest errors But among all the busie people that use it there are none that employ it more perniciously than Hereticks and corrupters of Religion This false Rhetorick is the principal instrument they seduce withall Accordingly it is evident that they have always taken it up and scarce ever attempted upon Truth but with this sort of weapons And it must be confessed that they help themselves by them with wonderful dexterity Never was cause in matter of Religion more sordid or shameful or seeble than that of the Pagans yet they that pleaded it against the ancient Christians knew so well how to fard it with the colours of their false reasons and the gloss of their brave words that they made it pass for plausible among the multitude and rendered Christianity ridiculous to them how holy and lightsome soever its truth was Those Hereticks which arose from among Christians had no less ability and artificialness to recommend their impostures borrowing for this purpose from the Philosophers and Orators of the world the subtilties of their Logick and all the colours of their Rhetorick There are still left us some pieces of the one and the other in the Books of Antiquity as the Discourses of one Celsus in Origen of one Caecilius in Minutius of Porphyrius and Symmachus for Paganism divers writings of Tertullian for Montanism of Fanstus for the Manichees and of Julian for the Pelagians in S. Augustine It 's wonderful with what dexterity and with what grace and eloquence they do manage such bad and infamous subjects nor can I read them without lamenting the unhappiness of so many excellent and highlyapprovable things to be miserably profaned in the service of error as one cannot chuse but groan to see Marble and Gold and Azure and precious Stones employed in adorning the Temple of an Idol And I note it expresly to you my Brethren that you may not think it strange if those of Rome at this day do speciously defend a very bad Cause nor be much moved at the ostentation they make of it who are not ashamed to boast of the eloquence and subtilty of their Teachers as if this were one of the marks of truth I freely consent to the praises they give them and do acknowledg that words of perswasion as the Apostle here calls them do abound on their side but I dare affirm notwithstanding and am assured that every intelligent and unpassionate person will accord with me herein That how subtil and eloquent soever their Masters be and how much pains soever they have taken for the better plastring over and colouring and burnishing of their Doctrine in conclusion their works are not more neat nor more polite nor more specious and fair-seeming than the works of those Pagans and Hereticks whom I but now named yea to speak without passion I believe they are far inferior to them Let them forbear therefore to urge unto us for a mark of truth an advantage which is common to them with Pagans and Hereticks an advantage which the most infamous Causes do employ which the worst do ordinarily seek after more earnestly than the best so much more cunning being used in their defence by how much less strength they have in themselves Not that I would decry eloquence and acuteness or render them suspect with you as if they never were in other service than of error I willingly acknowledg they are excellent graces of GOD and that he gives them to men properly for the defence of Truth and sure they have not always had the hard hap to contend for Falshood They have often done good service to the Gospel and employed their might for its glory both heretofore against the Pagans and the old Hereticks and in our times against those of Rome as appears by the writings both of the Fathers and of our own Doctors a good number of them being found who even in this respect come no whit behind their adversaries besides their having the principal advantage that is the truth on their side This Paul himself who here condemneth words of perswasion when they recommend error doth not reject them when they are labouring for truth And though he was not much versed in the art of prophane eloquence whence it comes that he saith of himself that for speech he was as one of the Vulgar yet his discourses want no strength nor grace that rich heavenly knowledg which abounded in his heart giving
its tincture to the words of his mouth and that great personage indeed felt how it was who hearing him speak was press'd with the force of his discourse and said aloud Thou almost perswadest me to be a Christian All my aim is Acts 26.28 that since error oftentimes abuseth eloquence and acuteness against the truth as evil men do other gifts of God to evil ends we should not judg of the main of any cause by this advantage nor hastily embrace that party that defends it self with the best and most perswafive words nor reject that which hath least of these ornaments in view As Innocence is not always the best clothed so Truth frequently is not the most decked And though of it self it be always more probable more likely and more easily maintainable than falshood Arist. Rhetor. l. 1. c. 6. as one of the ancient Sages well observed yet sometimes it comes to pass through the sleight of seducers by the false light they set it in and the colours they shadow it with that it looks worse in the eyes of the ignorant than a lye doth Take we heed then of their surprising us and so well fortifie our minds against their illusions that they may never make us reject the truth how foul and ugly soever they paint it out nor receive a delusion how specious and plausible soever they do render it Remember that that Babylon the Mother of Error who is pourtrayed before us in the Apocalyps Rev. 17.4 doth present its abominations unto men in a golden Cup that is she gives her poysons in a pleasing Vessel and shuts up and hides the horridness of her impostures under very fair and specious words it 's this that those seducers yerwhile did who sollicited the Colossians their errors were attended with perswasive words for the beguiling of them This is the danger from which S. Paul would here preserve them Let us now consider the means he puts into their hands for their safe guarding themselves from it This I say unto you saith he that no one may deceive you with enticing words Since he thus speaks it 's evident that what he saith is able if we improve it as we ought to keep us from falling into the misleadings of seducement and to frustrate all the charms of its good and perswasive words What then is it that he saith and what at last is that so holy and so efficacious a speech which can dissipate the illusions and enchantments of error Dear Brethren you heard it in the exposition of the precedent Text where this holy man told us that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg are hid in JESVS CHRIST It 's that he understandeth here This is that Celestial Oracle to which he attributes this great vertue This is the remedy which he giveth us against all the poysons and all the charms of seduction None of the weapons or of the wiles of error can bear up before this sacred word It alone is sufficient if we use it as we ought to confound and annihilate all the pretended wonders of the eloquence and subtilty of false Teachers as heretofore the Rod of Moses swallowed up all the Rods of the Egyptian Magicians For whosoever shall hold fast this principle in his heart that all true wisdom and knowledg is in JESUS CHRIST he will receive nothing out of CHRIST Being content with this treasure he will despise all other things how specious and plausible soever they may be Seduction will do well to display its arts and to gild and paint over its inventions with the fair colours either of ratiocination or of eloquence It will get no ground upon such a one since after all the thing it doth so carefully polish is not in JESUS CHRIST out of whom he will know nothing He will not so much as hear the babling of error so far will he be from being affected with it He will shut his car against its fine words so far is he from being seduced by them Or if he please to cast his eye upon the works of its subtilty and its eloquence he will look upon them as Spiders webs or as jugling and Gipsies feats which amuse us and beguile our senses but make no impression on our hearts We well know they do deceive us though we cannot tell how So the faithful man will hold that for a deceit and an illusion that leads him out of JESUS CHRIST though otherways he do not see wherein the sophism of the error doth consist nor is able clearly to unty the knots thereof This dear Brethren is the sure and infallible means to exclude and to expel all error from among us Seducement winneth nothing but upon those that betray this gate and yeild it that there may something be of good and saving importance out of JESUS CHRIST and his Scriptures When once it hath this ground given it never wanteth paint and pretences to colour its delusions and render even those plausible and likely which are otherways grossest and most extravagant Thus those Traditions and Ceremonies which have still the vogue among our Adversaries were by little and little obtruded upon Christians The invocation of Angels and of Saints departed the Sacrifice of the Altar and the veneration of Reliques and of Images the visible Head and the Hierarchy and the infallibility of the Church Satisfactions and the merit of works Prayers and Services in a language not understood the adoration of the Host Communion in one kind only Purgatory Suffrages for the dead and many other such like things A thousand and a thousand colours are found to paint them out and recommend either the belief or the practise of them to poor people There are huge Books made about them full of wit and eloquence that drive the matter so far as to make these things pass for the principal and most useful part of Christian devotion But this short Saying of S. Paul's is enough to ruin all their labours and to secure us from all their snares In JESVS CHRIST are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg It sufficeth me to have Him since having Him I have all appertaineth to true wisdom How well disputed and how eloquently soever pleaded all your traditions be I am not concerned in them seeing I have the treasure of all Science in CHRIST JESUS And it is not here alone that the Apostle giveth us this lesson for the freeing our selves from the intanglements and snares of error Elsewhere instructing the Hebrews and exhorting them that they would not be carried to and fro with divers and strange doctrines he lays before them at the entrance this divine principle That JESVS CHRIST is the same both yesterday and to day and for ever But it 's now time to come to the second part of our Text in which the Apostle declares to the Colossians the cognizance he took of the state of their Church For saith he though I be absent in body yet in spirit
He shall entertain not Men or Angels but the King of Men and Angels the Eternal Son of God the Prince of Life and Father of Eternity He that receives the Doctrine of an Aristotle or a Plato or of a Father or a Pope and in short of any man whatever doth not thereupon receive the Author of the Doctrine himself because no man hath either the power or the means to communicate himself to those that credit his instructions But JESUS CHRIST being GOD blessed for ever of a Nature a Wisdom and a Power infinite he accompanieth his own Gospel and communicates himself to those that receive it he dwelleth in their hearts by faith he there sheds abroad the light and influence of his Spirit he bringeth thither with him Peace and Life and Joy Now to close up this part Take heed you do not stretch S. Paul's words beyond his intention as if his meaning were that generally every one should hold to that which he hath been taught and never part with what he hath once received whatever the things be which he hath believ'd and whoever the persons were that delivered them GOD forbid that an imagination so sottish and pernicious and so very far from the Apostle's mind should ever enter into your heart By this account those that have been in an error should do well not to come out of it and it should not be lawful for such as have taken poison instead of a remedy to cast it away Neither should point of honour and generosity be urged in this case perseverance in an error once known is not constancy but obstinateness It 's a part of true generosity to confess one's fault and forsake it and it is clearly a seebleness of spirit not to let go what is false or naught upon the pretence that you had the ill hap to close sometime with it I confess it had been better to have rejected it at first but setling in it after conviction is a doubling of your fault and infelicity And as for Honour it 's a pitiful extravagancy to place it in things contrary to duty and vertue If Error be honourable I shall yeeld that he that confirms himself in it is a man of Honour But since quite contrary all confess as is most evidently true that Error is a shameful thing and blame-worthy who sees not but that true Honour obligeth us to quit it and not stiffen our selves in it and that pretending of Honour for persevering in error or in vice is to go about as the Gospel says to gather figs from a thorn Luke 6.44 and grapes from a thistle It is as if a man would attempt to white himself with Ink and cleanse himself with Mud. In a word it is a seeking of Honour in Shame and of Glory in Ignominy But I pass by those who by such speeches clearly discover either that they have not well pondered what they say or which would be yet worse that they hold Truth and Error Piety and Impiousness Vertue and Vice to be indifferent things since after their reckoning Pagans and Hereticks are blamable when they forsake these latter to follow the former which cannot be affirmed without maintaining at the least that both the one and the other are indifferent in as much as common sense dictateth to all men that it 's a prudent action worthy of praise and not of blame to quit the worse for the better and leave a bad way that one may take a good one I come to those of Rome who also abuse the Apostle's exhorting the faithful here and elswhere to abide in that which they have received and which hath been taught them without giving ear to novelties This say they is that you have done you that walk no longer in the way you were taught amongst us that have deserted and abjured the Mass and the Service of our Saints and the veneration of our Images and the belief of our Purgatory and many other such things which your Ancestors received and all which or the greatest part of them have been constantly and openly preached among us from age to age and from father to son for a thousand years and more as your selves cannot deny Dear Brethren To this I answer That this exhortation of the holy Apostle's is so far from favouring their Cause that quite contrary it overthrows it and sets up ours For as we have said He doth not positively determine that every one adhere to the Doctrine he hath received of his Teachers GOD forbid since by that means he should have obliged the Pagan to remain eternally in his Idolatry left him by his Ancestors and the Heretick in the error his Masters have infus'd into him and the Musulman in the Faith of his Mahomet and the Jew in the tradition of his Fathers He should on the contrary exhort the Gentiles to come out of the ways wherein GOD had let themselves and their Ancestors walk for the time past He who presseth the Galatians to forsake the by path whither their Doctors had misled them that they might recover the race they once ran He who would have Timothy and all true Ministers 2 Tim. 2.25 26. labour to draw men out of the snares of the Devil whatever hand it was that entangled them in the same He speaks here to faithful people who had received and kept pure and sincere till then the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST without any mixture of error or superstition It 's to these he recommends the standing fast in what they had learned And if our Adversaries resemble them I confess they have reason to stick in the Doctrine of their Fathers and we have done ill to recede from it He speaks not in general of all kind of Doctrine but particularly and by name of that which the Colossians then believed to which he expresly gives these two Characters for the distinguishing of it from all other Doctrines First That it wholly referred to JESUS CHRIST Secondly That it had been delivered them either by himself or at least by some one of his faithful Disciples So as you have received JESVS CHRIST walk in Him even as you have been taught If such the Doctrine of Rome be if it neither publish nor exhibit ought but JESUS CHRIST the Lord if it were delivered by S. Paul if it came from his hand if it be derived from his spring I will unfeignedly confess that we are faulty in having quitted it But since on the contrary it is evident and as clear as the light of the Sun that what we have quitted and abjured is not that LORD JESUS CHRIST whom Paul and his fellow-labourers and Scholars preached but a Leaven which is contrary to him and which hath been superadded by men nor was taught by the first Ministers of the truth Who seeth not that we have in this not disobeyed but obeyed the Apostle's exhortation that we have done what he commands and not what he forbids For in what place of S.
the importance of this duty Beware saith he lest any man make prey of you He could not more to the life or with greater elegancy express the danger of such as stand not on their guard than by this word which signifies properly to carry away the booty that a man hath taken It is not without cause saith he that I give you order to use all your abilities and to defend your selves against Error with utmost vigilancy For no small matter depends upon it It is as much as your souls your selves and the noblest part of your beeing your understandings your affections your heart comes to The Wolves and the Thieves against whom men watch with so much care do aim only at their Sheep or their Purse Those against whom I animate you aim at your Persons An Enemy against whom Cities and States do set guards doth threaten only their Goods or their Lives at most He against whom I require your watching seeketh your souls and the share they have in eternity You are the Workmanship and the Jewel of the LORD of Glory You will be a prey to Satan and his Ministers if you fall into their snares They will not be content with having taken you they will bring you into bondage and the redeemed of JESUS CHRIST whose liberty he hath bought at the price of his Divine Blood will become slaves of men and which is worse of Devils Good GOD how piercing was the eye of that Heavenly Spirit which guided the Pen of this Apostle How clearly did it see the nature and the qualities of all the things whereof he speaketh Observe how Error â—iumpheth over those whom it infecteth See the Trophies it sets up of their spoils the Fâ—tters wherewith it loadeth those whom it seduceth the yoke which it puts upon their neeks and the captivity into which it brings them and you with confess that the eâ—lects of its false and damnable conquests could not pâ—ssibly be more truly and more naturally represented to us than by saying as S. Paul doth here that it makes a prey of Christians or carries them away as booty For Error is ever insolent and whereas Preachers of the Truth do serve those whom they teach and stile themselves their Ministers as this Apostle heretofore did the Teachers of Falshood usurp dominion over those whom they have corrupted and vaunt that they are their Judges their Masters and their Lords S Paul noted it long since of the seducers of the Corinthians who as he saith 2 Cor. 11.20 enslaved them devoured them and exalted themselves over them and smote them on the face that is did put all kind of indignities upon them And the false Teachers among the Galatians Gal. 6.13 he saith did glory in the flesh of their miserable discriples They are blind that do not at this day observe the self-same thing in the carriage of those men that reign over all the multitude whom they have deceived and rear up lofty Trophies of every poor soul that they have made prey of Dear Brethren if you love the liberty which the LORD JESUS hath purchased for you if you abhor the servitude of men if you desire the fruit of the one which is immortality and detest perdition the inevitable sequel of the other in the name of GOD take heed that no man make prey of you The Doctrine of truth is enclosed within the LORD's sheepfold Abide there if you would be in safety Stray you thence but ever so little and you will fall into the hands of Wolves and Robbers Hearken not unto their babble Be not taken with their countenance Let any thing among them that may promise fair be suspected of you since their seeking only is to withdraw you from the simplicity of the Gospel Now the Apostle points at three things here which he adviseth us to take heed of in particular namely The vain deceit of Philosophy The traditions of men and The rudiments of the world Because these were the three sources from which those false Apostles that then attempted the Colossians drew all the heads of their Doctrine and the means which they used to colour it and give it that vain lustre which was needful for the beguiling of the simple and unlearned For Col. 2.23 as we shall see more particularly in the sequel of this Chapter they enjoined the worshipping of Angels a matter they had taken in all likelihood out of the Sinks of the Platonick Philosophers who storied divers things of these higher spirits and of their interposition and mediation between GOD and us for the purifying of us and the rendring us capable of supream happiness as we see even at this day in those remains which we have of their Writings Again Col. 2.23 they introduced divers voluntary devotions which did not spare the flesh and seem'd full of humility but were indeed only traditions of men without any foundation in the word of GOD. Finally it is also evident that they pressed the observation of days and the distinction of meats according to the ordinances of the Mosaical Law which are likewise stiled Elements of the World Now though these three points do particularly respect the false Teachers at Coloss yet they are common well-nigh to all such as ever set themselves to alter and sophisticate the Gospel the most part of their impostures having issued from one of these three springs We will consider them therefore briefly and distinctly by the will of God and after them the character or mark which S. Paul giveth them to wit that these things are not after CHRIST Among these things of which we are to beware he gives the first place to Philosophy It 's name is very honourable Philosophy if you weigh the word signifying the love and pursuit of wisdom But the corruptness of those men that gave their Profession this name among the Grecians did disgrace so worthy a term and made it to be the name of a Tool of Error and Imposture rather than of an Instrument of Science and Truth For the common sort of those that stiled themselves Philosophers amused themselves altogether in vain Speculations in a trade of subtilty and syllogizing and in endless disputes that yeelded men no true profit They thought they had attained the End of their profession when they had got a faculty to speak of all matters with some colour and probability so as to dazle the eyes of the ignorant and win the admiration of the half-witted This vanity rendred them odious first among the Pagans themselves where they went among the people for extravagant persons and were in little better esteem among the greater part of the better sort And for as much as of all Professions scarce any did more fiercely oppose the Gospel of our Saviour thence it came to pass that the first Christians also conceiv'd a very ill opinion of them which encreas'd when it did appear that Hereticks did ordinanarily fetch from these mens Forges the Arms
known of Him Rom. 1.19 20 and that His eternal Power and Godhead invisible in themselves are yet visibly seen by the creation of the world they being considered in His works But the misery is that the Philosophers being carried away with that vanity and curiosity which was natural to them broke those bounds and would needs define things which are beyond that compass and about which Reason in the state we now are sees not one jot And here it is they necessarily fell into error and extravagancies as persons born blind would do should they intrude to discourse to us of colours Such are the Fancies of Plato and his Scholars concerning the estate of the souls of men departed from their bodies concerning the purifications he devised to convey us near the Supream Good concerning the interposition of Daemons is he calleth them that is Angels as the Scripture terms them to present our supplications to GOD and concerning the service which he ordained to be done them in consequence of this good office and a thousand other such like things Such also was the mistake of Aristotle when not content to understand the present establishment of the World he would know what it was in the beginning wherein he had no light at all concluding because in the state things now are of nothing nothing is made that therefore it was never otherwise and thereupon affirming for a certainty that the World is eternal As if we must needs judg of the first beginning of a thing by those Laws under which it lives after its settlement and should limit the power of a free Agent to the measure of the effect wrought that is as if because GOD in this frame of the World doth make now nothing without Matter therefore it followed that absolutely he could make nothing another way which is as impertinent a reasoning as if you should inferr that because a Painter hath wrought his pieces with three or four colours only it were impossible for him to draw or represent any thing any otherways In this particular Philosophy hath offended by excess undertaking more than it could compass It often erreth likewise by defect when it rejects the revelation of GOD as resolved to admit nothing that is above its own sense and reason as if a man that had never seen any other than the shining of our Fires and our Candles should contest there was no other light in the world Pride hath made the greatest part of the old Philosophers to fall into this impiety It seemed to them an abasing of their glory to acknowledg there was another School more knowing than theirs and that it was an injury to tell them GOD had discovered secrets to others which he had hid from them It was this vanity that spurr'd them on so violently against the Gospel of our LORD and Saviour at the beginning If Philosophy do modestly keep its rank if it be content with its bounds and not thrust away nor injure divine Revelation if it acknowledg it as its Mistris and be subject to it as Agar yerwhile was to Sarah welcom be it it may be received and may abide with us But if it usurp if it will needs be Mistris and command in a Family where it hath only the quality of a Bond-woman let it depart and be treated according to Sarah her speech to Abraham Drive out the bond-woman and her son GOD hath vouchsafed to reveal unto us by his Prophets and in the last times by his own Son all the Articles of Religion Philosophy ought to adore them with us It hath nothing to enjoin us in the matter From the mouth of GOD not from the mouth of Philosophy do we receive Religion As often therefore as Teachers of Error shall use the authority or artifice of the Philosophers to render their inventions plausible or probable in our eyes let us boldly despise all their subtilty Let not the names of Aristotle and Plato make us afraid let not their petty subtilties dazzle our sight We may hear them when question is only of men and of nature When GOD and his service is concern'd we ought to give ear to none but GOD and the Son of his love about whom he hath proclaimed from Heaven to us This is my beloved Son hear him It 's this the Apostle doth intend when he saith here Let no man make a prey of you by Philosophy But provided the Doctrine of our Lord and Saviour do remain sound and entire without diminution without augmentation or mixture we are not prohibited the service of Philosophy but may employ its Physicks and its Ethicks to confirm and illustrate as far as they can the truths of the Gospel its Logick to defend them against the Sophisms and Sleights of gain-sayers and in sum to adorn and embellish them we may use ought of worth that Philosophy doth afford as the Israelites heretofore adorned the Sanctuary of GOD with the Gold and Silver and Jewels of Egypt Whence you may see how in the disputes of Religion which we have with those of Rome they for their part do evidently abuse Philosophy whereas we duly employ it they abuse it For not to say that they make Aristotle reign in their Divinity-School regarding his Edicts and cherishing much jealousie of his reputation as if he were a Pillar of Religion they found Articles of their Faith upon the authority of the Sages of the world as when they prove their Purgatory by the testimony of Plato and the veneration of Images by the custom of Nations and Free-will by Philosophy and divers other things of like nature which being not to be found in the Scriptures of GOD they go seek them in the Writings of men As for us it is evident we have no positive Article in our Faith but what is in the Gospel Only when our Adversaries urge their Transubstantiation upon us having shewed that GOD hath no where revealed it to us in his word but even clearly contradicted it we call in Philosophy its self to our succour to evidence the absurdity thereof We produce its testimony in a case which clearly is of its cognizance namely the nature of an human body the place it takes up the quantity to which it is extended the quality of substantial mutations of which kind they pretend this is Whether a body made and formed Sixteen hundred years ago may still be every day substantially produced But it is high time to come to the two other Sources of the deceits of false Teachers The second is the Tradition of men as the Apostle calls it Take heed saith he that none do make prey of you by Philosophy and vain deceit after the traditions of men The Scripture commonly gives the name of Traditions to those instructions which we receive from some other And it frequently useth the word deliver whence in the Latin Tongue that of Tradition is derived for to instruct or teach I received of the LORD saith the Apostle that
or avarice or any of those loathsome defilements that do disfigure the whole life of worldlings The LORD JESUS who hath given us this excellent Divine Doctrine who hath founded it by his death and set it up by his resurrection who also hath in these latter times purged it afresh both of the vanities of Philosophy and of the traditions of men and of the elements of the world please to confirm us in it for ever by his good Spirit and to make it so efficacious for the sanctification of our life that after we have finished this earthly pilgrimage we may receive one day at our going forth of this vale of tears from his merciful hand the Crown of immortality which he hath promis'd and prepar'd for all true observers of his Discipline Amen The Twenty-first SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER IX Ver. IX For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily AS the Christian Religion doth consist in Principles and Practises incompably more sublime and salutiferous than any that the world ever learned in the Schools of Nature and the Law so was it delivered and instituted by an Author infinitely more excellent than any of those were who ever erected other Disciplines among men I will not insist upon the Authors of those various Religions which bore sway heretofore in the time of Paganism who though they were in esteem among Nations and raised to an high reputation of wisdom and vertue yet had the taint of an extream ignorance and vanity as their own Institutions sufficiently discover to any one that will take the pains to examine them in the light of Reason It would be injurious to the LORD JESUS the Founder and Prince of Christianity to compare him with such people But even Moses himself the great Teacher of the Hebrews and the Prophets who commented on explained and confirmed his Law are all insinitely beneath the dignity of this new Law-giver They were I grant Ministers of GOD the Mouth and Organs of his Majesty the Interpreters of his Will and Heralds of his Truth being endued as was suitable to so high Offices with an excellent sanctity a rare and extraordinary Wisdom and an heavenly Power which evidenced it self in them by miraculous effects But after all they were men and never pretended to be ranked above that feeble nature which was common unto them and us nor did receive any of those Honours which belong to the Divine whereas the LORD JESUS is so Man as he is likewise GOD blessed for ever and was so far from refusing Divine Honours that he hath expresly required them at our hands and enjoined us to adore him with the Father and to acknowledg him his Eternal Son This same difference the Apostle observes between the LORD JESUS and those other Ministers which GOD made use of in the former Ages God saith he having at sundry times and in divers manners in time past spoken unto the fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son Ebr. 1.1 Moses and the rest were Prophets of GOD JESUS is his Son The others were his Ministers JESUS is his Heir The others were faithful as Servants Ebr. 3.5 6. JESUS as Son is over the whole House In the others there did shine forth some marks of the commerce they had with GOD that Soveraign Majesty imprinting on their faces as upon Moses's in particular some sparklings of his glory But JESUS is His very Light the resplendency of his glory and the character of his Person Dear Brethren it doth highly concern us to know rightly this great dignity of our LORD and Saviour not only for the rendring to his Person the worship we owe him and of which we may not fail without offending the Father as himself hath told us John 5.23 He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father who hath sent him but also for our embracing with so much the more zeal the Religion he hath delivered us without ever admitting the perswasion that either men on earth or even Angels from Heaven can add any thing to the light the goodness and the perfection of the discipline of so great and so perfect an Author For this cause doth S. Paul here hold forth to the Colossians the Divinity of our LORD JESUS CHRIST In the precedent Verses he exhorted them to constant perseverance in the belief of his Gospel confirming themselves in it more and more and taking heed they gave no car to Philosophy and the vain traditions of seducers who endeavoured to corrupt sound doctrine by the mixing of divers inventions which they would add to it as if it were not perfect enough of it self to guide us to salvation The Apostle to bereave Error of this pretext and shew the faithful not only the sufficiency but even abounding of the Gospel represents unto them the soveraign perfection and divinity of its Author For in him saith he dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily Since you have JESUS CHRIST saith he there is no need of recourse to others In Him as in a living and inexhaustible spring is all good necessary to your happiness a divine Authority to found your Faith an infinite Wisdom to direct you in all truth an incomprehensible Goodness and Power to give you grace and glory a quickning Spirit to sanctifie and comfort you All other things compared to Him are but poverty and weakness See how the Apostle fortifies the faithful in the doctrine of the LORD and in few words overthrows all that the presumption of flesh and blood may dare to set up beside or against his perfect truth For a right understanding of his words we must consider them exactly For though the number of them be small their weight is great they are rich and magnifick in sense and do contain within their narrow compass one of the noblest and fullest descriptions of JESUS CHRIST that is found in Scripture Let us see then first what all this fulness of the Godhead is whereof the Apostle speaketh And then in the second place how it dwells in JESUS CHRIST to wit bodily The LORD please to conduct us by the light of his own Spirit in so high a Meditation that of his fulness we may receive grace for grace and draw from it what may fill our souls with that life and salvation which overfloweth in him and can be no where found at all but in him As for the subject it self whereof S. Paul speaketh and in which he saith that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth none can doubt but that it is our LORD JESUS CHRIST For having said at the end of the verse immediately foregoing that the traditions of men and rudiments of the world are not after CHRIST he now addeth For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead Whence it is clear that the LORD JESUS CHRIST whom he had even then named is the Person of whom he speaks and to whom he attributes
all this fulness As little could any man be to seek who this JESUS was of whom the Apostle speaks All knew him at least confusedly and in gross and did conceive him a man born of Mary in Judea who having liv'd some years among the Jews had been at length crucified by the sentence of Pontius Pilate and who being risen from the grave to a new life had sent forth his Apostles to preach his Gospel and afterwards afcended up into Heaven And though all did not believe that he was risen again and glorisi'd yet all well knew that this was said of him so that both the one and the other hearing JESUS CHRIST named did presently conceive in their mind the Idea of this Person born and dying in Judea at such times and at such places with some retinue of Disciples during his life and after his death This then is the subject of which S. Paul speaks even JESUS CHRIST considered under this form of a man in which he manifested himself to the world and in which he was conceiv'd and figured in the minds of those that heard him named In this man whose appearance was like that of other men who was born and bred on earth sustained during his life with our common food subject to our infirmities who passed through the differences of our ages suffer'd our griefs felt our inconveniences and experimented the rigour of death yea the cruellest that was in this man I say whose body was nailed to a Cross and deprived of its soul and buried in a Sepulcher in this man under so mean and contemptible a form dwelleth faith the Apostle all the fulness of the Godhead It is ordinary in the Hebrew Language to signifie by the fulness of any thing that which the thing containeth as by the fulness of the earth Men and other living creatures Psal 24. which do fill it and by the fulness of the Sea the Isles which the Sea containeth After this manner of expression the qualities and perfections of any one nature may be call'd its fulness because they are the things that fill it and with them it is as it were furnished and adorned as the movables and ornaments of a room or an house are the fulness of it Therefore as if I should say that in Adam as he was at first created was found all the fulness of Manhood every one would easily perceive that my intention were to say the perfections of human nature the faculties and properties and beauties which it is full of and without which it cannot sustain the dignity of that name were all in Adam â—an immortal soul a vigorous understanding a free-will a body of excellent 〈◊〉 acute senses and in sum all the other faculties that have any place among the perfections of the nature of man So here when we hear the Apostle saying that the fulness of the Godhead is in JESUS CHRIST let us account that by this clause he meaneth those perfections and qualities which fill up the Divine nature in which this great and soveraign Beeing doth consist and which Theologues commonly call the Attributes of GOD. You know what the word Godhead doth signifie even the Nature and Essence of GOD. The fulness of the Godhead then is that rich and incomprehensible abundance of perfections whereof the supream and adorable Nature is full as His Life His Power His Wisdom his Justice His Goodness His Immensity His Eternity His Holiness and all the other Properties which it hath in an ineffable manner and which our understandings according to their mean capacity do conceive in it as the form of the Deity that is necessary for its having that Name a nature that wanteth it being incapable of being called GOD otherwise than falsly and improperly I grant some resemblances or rather some touches and lineaments of these Perfections of the Godhead do appear in the noblest of the Creatures as in the Angels for instance who are immortal and endowed with an admirable sanctity vertue and power But the fulness of them is not in any Creature at all neither can it be found that ever the Scripture spake in this manner of Angels and said that the fulness of the Godhead was in them Besides these blessed Spirits and other Creatures how excellent soever you can imagine them to be do participate of these divine perfections but in a very little measure Whereas the LORD JESUS hath them wholly And to make this evident to us the Apostle thought it not enough to say that the fulness of the Godhead is in Him but hath expresly declared that ALL this fulness dwelleth in Him that we might be assured there is not at all any Perfection or Excellency or Accomplishment in the Divine Nature but is found in Him Thus in these two or three words he hath comprised all that the Scripture teacheth us in divers places of the richness of the Perfections of our LORD and Saviour For instance it tells us That he is full of grace and truth that he is the Wisdom and the Power of the Father that he hath the words of life that he is the Way the Truth and the Life that in him are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledg that he hath that might and strength which sustaineth all things now and which created them at first that he is the Everlasting Father and hath immortality and incorruption hath an infinite understanding whereby he soundeth the reins and discerneth all the thoughts of the hearts of men that he hath a super-eminent Glory to which all Creatures ought to do homage yea the Angels themselves who indeed adore Him the Empire and dominion over all the world the right and authority to judg all men and a multitude of such things as these Verily S. Paul hath comprised it all in one word saying here that all the fulness of the Godhead is in JESUS CHRIST it being evident that if he wanted any of these Names Rights and Attributes He could not have all the fulness of the Godhead which is ascribed here unto Him But let us now see in what manner he possesseth these things the Apostle expresseth it very briefly saying that all this fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him bodily First the term dwelleth is illustrious signifying that all this copious abundance of perfections doth not reside in JESUS CHRIST for some time only appearing a little while and then withdrawing again so making some transient stay in Him a few moments and no more but that it abideth in Him constantly and for ever for so the word dwell in Scripture-use doth import The Word and the glory of GOD appeared in Moses and the Prophets when being moved by the power of his Spirit they uttered and acted Divine things but it dwelt not in them It only rested on them some hours space for the LORD 's recommending those Servants of His and for the setling their authority by these marks of his Providence and of his communicating with
that was born of the blessed Virgin and reciprocally the sufferings the qualities and the actions of the Flesh that was born of Mary are attributed to the Eternal Son of GOD as when the Scripture saith That GOD hath redeemed the Church with his own blood that the Lord of Glory was crucified that JESUS CHRIST is before Abraham was that he founded the Earth at the beginning and the Heavens are the work of his hands and other like expressions Dear Brethren such is the sense of these divine words of the Apostle Admire ye the force and the richness of the Scripture which hath in so few words blasted and beaten down all the inventions and dogmatizings of Error against the Truth both of the two Natures of our LORD and Saviour and of the union of them in His Person First These words do overthrow the impiety of those who bereave JESUS CHRIST of his Divinity and reduce Him to the degree and condition either of a meer Man or of a Person raised indeed above man yet made notwithstanding and created at the beginning as well as other Celestial and Terrestrial Creatures How can such blasphemy subsist before this Sacred Oracle which proclaimeth not simply the Divinity but that the Godhead and not this simply neither but that the fulness of the Godhead yea to omit nothing that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him bodily If He be but a Man and no more no part of this fulness of the Godhead dwells in Him neither its Power nor its Wisdom neither its Goodness nor its Justice neither its Glory nor its Eternity For none of these Divine qualities do dwell in one who is but a man We must avouch that he hath in him verily those Perfections that fill up the Godhead that is the Divine Nature or deny that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him But if you grant me as deny it you cannot without giving the Apostle the lye that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him you must of necessity confess also that he is GOD no one if he be not GOD being capable of receiving holding and having in himself the fulness of GOD. For this fulness being infinite there is none but GOD that can contain it since there is not any but he alone who is infinite Now it dwelleth all in our LORD JESUS CHRIST It must therefore of necessity be confessed That He is GOD of a Nature infinite Whereby the frigid and frivolous evasions of those impious men are refuted who taking away from JESUS CHRIST the reality and true glory of Divinity do leave him the name of it and make a titular GOD of him a GOD as they speak created and raised up a while since who hath but the title of GOD not the nature the office not the essence Who can sufficiently detest the audaciousness of these Wretches that by this impiety of theirs do overthrow all the ground-work of the Scripture which hath insinuated nothing more clearly or more expresly than the one-ness of the true GOD Who is too so jealous of his glory as that he forbiddeth us upon pain of death to give his Name or his Worship or his Attributes unto any Creature of what quality soever If JESUS CHRIST be not the true Eternal GOD Creator of the Heavens and the Earth how will you miserable men avoid this condemnation you that give him the name and the adoration of the true GOD But S. Paul lays all their subtilty in the dust by saying formally here that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him bodily The fulness of the Godhead is not an empty name or a titular dignity It is that which fills it it is that gloriousness it is that light it is that nature that truth and that perfection wherewith the Godhead is full It 's this therefore that dwells in JESUS CHRIST the substance of a true and real Divinity not an hollow and a vain shadow it 's the thing and not the title of Deity But as the Apostle doth by these words convince the impiousness of such as bereave our LORD and Saviour of the glory of his Divinity so doth he likewise confound the extravagancy of others who deprive him of his human nature foolishly affirming that he had but a false appearance in that kind For here are two subjects clearly represented to us one that dwelleth to wit the fulness of the Godhead another in which this fulness dwelleth to wit JESUS CHRIST the one is the Temple the other is the GOD that resideth in the same the one our Saviours Human nature the other the Eternal Son of the Father Two real and veritable subjects by the wonderful uniting whereof this sacred and adorable Sanctuary of GOD is made up and composed To take away the truth either of his Godhead with the former or of his Flesh with the latter is to destroy the Fabrick Again these words of the Apostle do in like manner overthrow the error of those who have corrupted the union of these two natures in JESUS CHRIST on one hand by dividing them as did the Nestorians on the other by confounding them as did the Eutycheans For if we sever JESUS CHRIST into two Persons the fulness of the Godhead will not dwell bodily in his Flesh This Man will have but gifts of the Divinity which are as it were some draughts and lineaments of it He will not have the Truth and the very Body of it Neither may it be reply'd That the Temple in which GOD resideth is a substance different from his Person For the Body is the residence of the Soul yet Soul and Body have but one and the same subsistence and do constitute but one and the same Person So as the dwelling of the Son in his Human nature as in his Temple doth not hinder but that this Human nature of his doth subsist with him in one and the same Person Yet though we may not divide these two Natures of our LORD it doth not follow that we must mix and confound them as they do who define the union of them by the Human nature its being made equal with the Divine and will have it to be become infinite and immense and endowed really in its self with all the properties of the Divine nature The Apostle saith indeed that the fulness of the Godhead dwells in CHRIST but he saith not that his Flesh was really chang'd into the Godhead The body by being personally united to the soul doth not thereby become soul It conserveth its own nature and hath only this advantage by that strict conjunction which knits it with the soul that they subsist together and make up but one and the same person Just so the Flesh of our LORD by the Word 's dwelling in it becomes one self-same Person with it being truly the body and the soul and in one word the nature of the Son of GOD yet it still keeps its original beeing and essential properties
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
pleasuâ—â— by an humility of spirit and the service of Angels intruding into things which be hath not seen being rashly puffed up with the sense of his flesh Dear Brethren Here is a notable sentence pronounced which overthrows in express words all the worship that the superstition of men whether ancient or modern doth attribute unto creatures it being clear that there is not any one of them whom we may lawfully serve in Religion since the Apostle forbiddeth us to serve the Angels themselves who are without difficulty of all creatures the most excellent You know the interest we have in this cause those of Rome anathmatizing us in it under colour that content to adore and serve GOD our Creator and Redeemer only we refuse to render unto Angels and Saints departed that Religious Worship and those Divine honours which they decree and deferr daily to them to the great prejudice of the glory of GOD and the irreparable offence of men Let us therefore exactly consider this Oracle of the holy Apostles and that we may leave nothing in it behind us we must see first what the Doctrine of those Seducers is which he condemneth He expresseth it in these words Let 〈◊〉 man master it over you by an humility of spirit and the service of Angels and then we are to examine in the second place the marks he gives these false Teachers which are contained in the following words intruding into things he hath not seen being rashly puffed up with the sense of his flesh and not holding the head But we will satisfie our selves for this time with the former of these parts remitting the second to another opportunity by reason of the cavils and inventions our adversaries make use of to corrupt this passage which we must refute as briefly as we can The word that S. Paul useth at the entrance and which we have translated Master it is difficult and seldom found in the Authors of the Greek Tongue S. Hierom one of the learnedst of the ancients sayes Ep. ad Alg. 9 10. it was peculiar to the Country of Cilicia whereof S. Paul was as being born at Tarsus the Capital City of that Proviâ—ice However it be the derivation of the word is clear and doth sufficiently discover what is well-nigh its signification For such as understand the Greek do know that this term comes from another which signifies the reward that was given to those who won the victory in those games or combats for prize at which certain Judges and Moderators did at that time preside who had the superintendance of the whole action regulating and bounding the race assigning the ground and receiving the Champions into it judging of their courses and combats proclaiming that man victorious to whom they yielded the advantage and solemnly putting a Crown upon his head Whence it comes that themselves were called by a name that signiâ—ies Givers of the reward and the term which signifies what they did on such occasions is generally used to express governing regulating ruling and having the superintendance of a matter It is expresly from this term that that which the Apostle useth here is formed saving that it seems to signifie governing and ordering not simply but to the prejudice and damage of the concerned Therefore some have thought that S. Paul comparing here the Faithful unto Racers or Combatants as he very often doth elsewhere does exhort them not to let the prize or reward of the Victory to be taken from them by the artifice of Seducers who made it their business to turn them out of the true and lawful lists of their race which are no other than believing and obeying the doctrine of the Gospel and make them enter into another carriere to wit that of their own inventions and services in the same sense that he elsewhere said to the Galatians who were abused by a like imposture Gal. 5.7 Ye did run well who did turn you aside that you should not obey the truth If this exposition were adapted as well as to the Apostles phrase as it is to his sense it would be excellent shewing us that I may say it by the way how this serving of Angels here forbidden us is an error of no small importance since it maketh those who turn aside unto or employ themselves in it to lose the prize of their Heavenly calling The Latin Interpreter Canonized by those of Rome having respect to the effect of such false doctrine which is a driving of the faithful out of the right way doth Translate it simply Let no man seduce you There is no need to report the thoughts of all others But I do affirm that there can be hardly found an expression more proper more commodious and according better with either the term or the scope of the Apostle then that of the French Bible Let no man master it over you which doth naturally express the magisterial authority that these Seducers assumed to themselves enjoyning and commanding their fancies to the faithful as if they had been installed Superintendants of their Religion and their lives and willing them to understand that without practising what they prescribed it was not possible to obtain the prize of their high calling Wherein the Apostle giveth them a blow and renders them ridiculous as men who having in truth no lawful authority would yet make it be believed that they had and did speak and command with as much confidence as if it belonged to them to distribute the Crown of Heaven at the last day or that they had it already in their hands to impart it to whom it should seem them good But that which S. Paul addeth doth discover their folly much more let no man saith he master it over you at his pleasure or at his will which may be referred either to their office or to their Doctrine or as I think to them both To their Office meaning that they are voluntary Superintendents and that their own will alone not the voice of GOD or men did elevate them to this pretended Mastership well night as the Roman Orator calls a certain man a Voluntary Senator who did thrust himself into the rank of the Senators but had no right to be there having been elected only by himself But this respects also their Dectrine and signifies that the serving of Angels which they commanded was founded meerly on their own good-pleasure and not upon any precept of GOD that their will alone was the reason and ground of it not the will of the LORD that it was nothing but an imagination of their own head and a fruit either of their melancholy or their malice Whence we may observe by the way That those that teach in the Church ought to set forth nothing but what is founded on the word of GOD. Isa 8.20 To the Law and to the Testimony but if they speak not according to this word of a truth there shall be no morning for them This rule is enough to
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
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
old man are left sound and whole to stretch out the one upon the ground and lye in ashes while the others are in pleasure It is not by an hair-cloth nor a whip that vices are subdued These things incommodate the body but do not sure amend the soul They humble the out-side they hurt not within But leave the old man there at full liberty with his thoughts and lusts And it is not without reason the Apostle advertiseth us else-where that bodily exercise profits little 1 Tim. 4.8 Experience hath justified his words the lives of those that addict themselves to such exercises being no better yea sometimes worse than the lives of others And it is not long ago The Jesuit Tetavius l. 5 c. 3. de la penit publique since Truth drew this confession from the penn of one of our greatest adversaries that such exercises do many times much hurt even mens spiritual advancement because of a secret opinionativeness and pride which they beget and feed in some spirits who become arrogant and haughty upon them and take occasion from them to contemn those that lead a more moderated life The Apostle therefore would have us instead of these childish and poorly profitable exercises to lay our our labour upon the mortifying of the members of the old man that is our 〈◊〉 And it is to the same intention of his that I referr what he addeth namely that these members are upon the heart which is a thing excellently noted what way soever you consider it For first these vices are all upon the earth if you respect either their rise or their business or lastly their end and desires It 's clear they all spring up out of the earth from admiration and coveting of earthly things they all creep on the earth in its excrements or in its fruits and rise no higher than its fumes and vapours wretchedly cleaveing to these sordid vanities which they feel to fleet away and perish between their hands while they gripe them and are enjoying them Where is covetousness Where is luxury Where is gluttony and ambition What seek they for What desire they For what do they toil themselves Sure you plainly see that the earth is their only element that the metal which the one desires and the flesh which the other longeth for and the messes that the third breaths after and the vanities that are the passion of the latter I say you plainly see that all this is but earth or fruits and productions of the earth They are then to say true these members of the old man that fasten us to the earth and not the members of this body it is sin and not simply this flesh For as to our body it needs but a little for its conversation during that little time we pass here below whereas the desires of vice are infinite Whence it follows according to the Apostle's conception that it is vice we are to mortifie and not the body the members of the old man and not those of the body Then again if you consider the place destinated to be the abode of the one and the other nature you will further see that the members of the old man that is vices are not but upon the earth It 's there they make their spoyl and exercise all their tyranny there they live there they dye there they rot unprofitably consuming themselves in their own wretched filthinesse They have no place in Heaven where enters nothing but what is pure where perfect sanctity liveth and reigneth eternally crowned with immortal glory But the members of our bodies which superstition fastens ou◠and ridiculously afflicts though they also be for present on the earth and have need of its elements yet they shall not remain there alwaies They shall be one day lifted up into the Heavens and enter into the Sanctuary of GOD and live on His manna and partake of the fruits of the coelestial tree of life Knowing now the meaning of this exhortation of the Apostle's you may easily of your selves without my saying any thing of it comprehend the connexion it hath with the precedent words which imported that we are dead and that our life is hid with CHRIST in GOD and that we shall one day appear with Him in glory For since we be dead to the world and called to the hope and the fruition of an heavenly life which is hidden on high in JESUS CHRIST and shall be one day manifested and given to each one of us who sees not that all this doth most strictly oblige us to draw off all our affections from the earth and to cut all the ties that fasten us unto it that is to mortifie our members which are on the earth all the vices that engage us and ensnare us in the things of the earth It remaineth that we consider the vices or members of the old man which the Apostle does particularly name and expresly injoyn us to mortifie He nameth five in all fornication uncleanness inordinate appetite evil concupiscence and covetousness I conceive that the four first are related to one and the same head and be but divers branches of one and the same stock to wit luxury or sensuality Fornication is the principal species of them the disorders whereof are so evident and so well known that no one can be ignorant of the nature of it Uncleannesse comprehendeth all the other ordures and pollutions that are contrary to the chastity and honesty of our bodies as incests violations and those other abominable furies of carnal passions which transgress even the laws of nature as corrupt as it is The word which we have translated inordinate appetite doth signifie literally perturbation or passion in the original tongue But it is frequently used to express the passion of lubrieity and the filthy disposition of a voluptuous and esseminate heart that easily receives the impression of all lascivious objects and abandons its self to these kind of pleasures and runs out and pours forth its self in a sort entirely to them Evil concupiscence which the Apostle addeth in the fourth place is the source or the root of all the vices of this sort For though concupiscence be often taken in general for all irregular appetites and desires whatever the objects are to which they are unduly carried yet it sometimes signifies those in particular which respect the pleasures of the flesh and we often use the word concupiscence in this sense in our vulgar language Nevertheless I grant that in this place it may be taken in a larger extent as importing inordinate coveting either of pleasures or of profits and riches because the Apostle speaks here of covetousness also and not of sensuality alone He calls this concupiscence evil to distinguish it from that which keeping within its just bounds desireth things lawful in a due manner and measure The last of the vices here touched by the Apostle is Covetousnesse a vice no less known than the fore-going Only
their reason do them little more service than if they had none at all Whereas now speech brings it forth and renders it useful to us communicating unto many and almost infinitely multiplying what was at first but in one soul alone For as a seal imprinteth the form that 's cut on it upon all the drops of wax to which you apply it so Speech gliding through the ear into the hearts of all that hear it engraveth on them that image which it carries with it of the mind and will of the speaker It guideth and keeps up the negotiations the treaties the alliances the arts the sciences and the disciplines of men and is the soul of their commerce and of their conversation and in a word of all their humanity 'T is by it that superiors make themselves to be obeyed and inferiors obtain the assistances they need since 't is it that makes both the wills of the one and the necessities of the other to be understood 'T is it that unites the souls of equals and discovers to the one and the other what each hath of reason and wisdom in himself or of sympathie and aversion for others It transfuseth the souls of the one into the others pouring into them their sentiments their reasonings their inventions and their affections But as the abuse of the excellentest things is much more dangerous than that of things mean and common so it is plain that the efficacy of speech is not less pernicious when applied to evil than useful and beneficial when employ'd to good It is as powerful to destroy as to edifie to infect as to cure and is equally capable of communicating unto men health and sickness life and death as the springs and intentions be from which it is dispensed Speech being of so great importance in the life of men it 's with great reson that the Apostle hath taken care in the rule he here gives us for our deportment to cleanse it of the vices which sin hath sowl'd it with You may remember that in the precedent text he purged it of the poisons of detraction and of pollutions contrary to honesty commanding us to put away evil-speaking and dishonest talk out of our mouth Now to the end it may be throughly pure and legitimate and truly worthy of a Christian mouth he taketh out of it lying also the most shameful of its defilements and that which is most directly contrary to its natural constitution Lie not saith he one to another And because in the precedent action shortness of time permitted us not to say all that we desired upon the two former vices of speech we will resume that discourse now with your permission and treat if the Lord please of all those three sins of the tongue which the holy Apostle hath here forbidden us first evil-speaking then in the second place filthiness contrary to honesty and thirdly lying May it please GOD to guide us in this discourse and so purifie our lips with the Divine fire of that heavenly coal wherewith He sometime touched those of a Prophet of His that henceforth our mouths may be so many living sources of benediction and edification from whence shall issue none but good and innocent pure and honest sincere and veritable speeches unto His glory and our neighbours benefit and our own salvation Amen The Apostle in the original of this text makes use of the word blasphemy to signifie that which we have rendred evil-speaking For though that term in our vulgar tongue doth import words spoken to the offence of GOD when things unworthy of His greatness and His holiness and truth are attributed unto Him or those that belong unto Him are denied of Him or when that which is proper to His Divinity is communicated to creatures yet so it is that in Greek that is in the language the Apostle speaks the word blasphemy doth generally signifie any offensive injurious speech whomsoever it concerns whether GOD or Angels or men The truth is this word if we respect its origination or etymologie doth simply denote an hurting of the reputation an offending of some one's honour as the Greek Grammarians have observed Whence it comes that St. Paul useth it not here only but also else-where to signifie such revilings and detractions as are directed properly unto men and not unto GOD as when he saith in the first Epistle to the Corinthians We are blamed and do intreat it is in the original 1 Cor. 4.13 we are blasphemed And when he enjoyns Titus to admonish the faithful that they speak evil of no man It is word for word in the Greek that they blaspheme no man Tit. 3.2 That evil speaking which he doth in this place so severely banish from all Christians mouths is a vice so common that no one can be ignorant of it The world is full of it and the Church it self beholds but too many examples of it in those that make profession of her communion But that no man may deceive himself it will not be impertinent to represent the principal kinds of it For as the pestilence is not all of a sort but great diversity is found in the poisons it comprehends and in the manner after which they seize on humane bodies so is it with evil-speaking It 's a poison that hath under it many different species a mischief that puts forth divers branches from one and the same root of bitterness If you regard the form of it one smites uncovered another deals its blows in secret the former revileth openly and rends the honour of a neighbour in his presence the latter manageth its self subtilly and blackens his reputation in private with so much the more effect for that it is in a place where no person appears to ward off its blows If you consider the causes and occasions of the thing some are push'd on to it by choler others by hatred some by a close envy the most by a secret malignity of nature In fine if you respect their design some do it to avenge themselves of offences which they believe they have receiv'd others to satisfie their naughty humour and a third sort meerly to pass away the time It may well be that the Apostle here did particularly aim at open evil-speaking which being pressed by the violence of anger breaks out into revilings since it is of this passion expresly that He spake in the precedent words Yet we may not imagin that he permitteth us any one of the kinds of this evil For what difference soever there be in other respects this is common to them all that they offend our neighbour and deprive him either in whole or in part of the preciousest of his goods that is his reputation If it be then a mortal sin to rob a man of his money or his movables or his lands how much more grievous is his crime who attempts to bereave him of his honour which is more to be esteemed than life it self To
the duty which the Apostle requireth of us here As indeed we must acknowledge that through the weakness of our apprehensions and understanding and amid that infinity of false appearances which things or men continually present us with it would be very difficult not to say impossible to preserve our selves from all error and never be deceiv'd in common life The Apostle demands of us a very easie and just thing even that we never speak any thing but what we believe to be true and that in the commerce we have with men our language be sincere and faithful without fraud and without fallacy naturally representing without what we conceive within and that it never betide us to say one thing and think the contrary The Scripture teacheth us in a multitude of places that GOD hateth lying more than any other Vice Prov. 12.22 and the Wise man saith expresly That false lips are an abomination to him the Psalmist also among other marks he gives the Inhabitants of the Hill of GOD Psal 15.2 puts this for the very first That they walk uprightly and work righteousness and speak the truth as it is in their heart and elsewhere he speaketh peremptorily Psal 5.7 That GOD will destroy them that speak leasing In sum S. Rev. 21.8 John proclaimeth in his Revelation That the portion of all lyers shall be in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone Whence you see that question here is not of a matter of decency but of a necessary duty which we may not fail of without incurring perdition The justice of it is so evident that the Sages of the Pagans themselves have acknowledg'd it leaving us in their Books a thousand notable intimations of that roundness and simplicity and truth which a man of honour and probity should inviolably observe in his whole life For speech having been given us by nature or to say better by the God of nature to the end we might signifie and declare unto our neighbours what we have in our hearts it 's clear that an abusing it to signifie what we do not think is a violation of the Law and institution of Nature And all true and generous courages have this sentiment so imprinted on their souls that they cannot endure double persons whence it comes that the Prince of Heathen Poets makes his Heroe say He hates no less than the gates of Hell the man that says one thing and hides in his heart another Lying is a slavish Vice that proceeds either from baseness of spirit or from badness of conscience or from vanity Accordingly you see that it 's extreamly odious among all noble and civilized Nations and particularly in ours of the French where you know there is no outrage that 's accounted more grievous and more sensible than to charge a man with lying He that hath suffer'd it without justifying himself is held to be a man lost in honour not among Gentlemen only but even among people of meaner birth this generous and veritable sentiment having been left us from hand to hand by our Ancestors that lying is an infamous thing and the mark of a soul either wicked or witless and that he who is not asham'd of it will make conscience of nothing as on the contrary truth is the foundation of all vertue and honesty But the Scripture sheweth us in two clauses what we should think of it when on one hand it nameth the Devil the Father of lyes and on the other calls the LORD the GOD of truth and his eternal Son the truth it self A consideration that renders the temerity of those so much the more unsufferable who stiling themselves the companions of JESUS have not shamed to favour lying by that Doctrine of Equivocations and mental reservations as they call them Eph. 4.20 which they have published and practised in these last times But ye have not so learned CHRIST if so be ye have heard and been taught by him as the truth is in JESVS He hates all lying and obliquity in what manner soever they be disguised and would not have his truth dishonoured by begging from its enemies hand the help it needeth that is he would no ways have fraud and fallacy employ'd on his behalf his providence is potent enough to defend it without such infamous succour It 's a maxim of his Apostles that we must not do evil that good may come thereof Lying is an evil contrary to the Law of God and the Ordinances of nature There cannot therefore be any reason that gives us a dispensation to commit it Thus you see beloved Brethren that which we had to say unto you concerning these three Vices which the Apostle does here banish from the mouths of Christians Evil-speaking Impurity and Lying Let us obey his holy Doctrine and remembring that according to S. James He that offendeth not in word the same is a perfect man let us diligently purge ours from all these ordures and so govern our tongue that it may not speak but of wisdom nor pronounce but of judgment and that all our discourses may be full of goodness and of honesty and of truth so as our LORD and Saviour who is charity purity and soveraign truth may own us for his and after the combats and tryals of this life give us part one day in the peace and triumphs of the next receiving us into the society of those pure and holy Spirits who live on high in the Heavens with him to bless him for ever as unto him with the Father and the holy Spirit the only true GOD belongeth all honour and glory Amen THE THIRTY EIGHTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER IX X XI Verse IX Having put off the old man with his deeds X. And having put on the new man which is renew'd in knowledge after the image of Him who created him XI Where there is neither Greek nor Jew neither circumcision nor uncircumcision neither Barbarian nor Scythian nor bond nor free but CHRIST is all and in all DEAR Brethren I know and freely confess that being called this day through the goodness of GOD to celebrate the memory of the death and passion of our LORD JESUS CHRIST this sacred chair is obliged for the fitting you to so important an action to entertain you with things that relate to this great and divine mysterie But as I acknowledge that this is properly the service in which I should employ this hour so I conceive that these words of the Apostle S. Paul which you have heard and which occur in the chain of our ordinary Text are very sutable to that principal subject of our exhortation For this putting off of the old man and this putting on of the new of which they tell us are both the one and the other the true effect of this death of our LORD the remembrance whereof we solemnize If JESUS had not dyed we should never have put off the old man nor put on the new since that
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
would have place in him but from the time he had put on the habit of Charity and could not hinder but that he might have transgressed divers waies before Since then the law justifyeth none but those that never violated it at any time what-ever it is manifest that though a Christian should never violate the law after he hath Charity yet could he not be justified by his works nor would he be exempted from needing the grace of GOD for the remission of the sins he committed before he had Charity But where grace is Rom. 11.6 there justification by works cannot have place according to St. Paul's saying in the Epistle to the Romans If it be by grace it is no more by works Otherwise grace is no more grace but if it be by works it is no more by grace Otherwise work is no more work But I add in the second place that what they do suppose to wit that he that hath Charity does perfectly fulfill the law and so as never to fail so much as in one point that this I say moreover is evidently false and contrary unto experience and unto Scripture Unto experience for who but daily sees and perceives how often how many waies those very men among the faithful do offend who have greatest degrees of Charity 1 Joh. 1. Unto Scripture for it plainly telleth us in divers places that if we say they are the words of an Apostle we have no sin we lye and the truth is not in us True it is that Charity doth not cause us to offend nay such offending is on the contrary a deviation and a departure from Charity However I affirm it is no impossibility but that a man that hath true Charity may sometime falter in it as you see it often comes to pass in all habits he that 's endowed with them doth some actions not very consonant unto them A good Archer for instance doth not alwaies hit the white and a good Advocate doth not alwaies plead exactly well It befalls the best Writers and the exquisitest Painters and the most accomplished Politicians to commit errors now and then in the matters of their profession And it was said long since of the excellentest and most admired piece of heathen Poetry that there are passages in it at which the author slept from whence others have deriv'd the priviledge that in a prolix work they may sometimes forget themselves The same event attends the habitudes of moral vertues for neither do these so absolutely fill up the souls of men but that actions contrary to them do sometimes escape those who have obtained them to an hiâ—â— degree as experience shews and Philosophers have expresly noted Therefore neither are faults incompatible with the habit of Charity as we possesse it here beneath Only it with-holdeth such as are truly endowed with it from committing them often and when they are overtaken it eftsoons toucheth them with regret at it and moves them to repent of what they have committed Since then that to be justified by works a man must present such one 's unto GOD as have no way any need of pardon it is still evident that Charity how accomplished soever we may have it here below yet is not capable of justisying us before GOD. If our adversaries will be obstinate and maintain that Charity is exempted from all sin I will grant it them of that Charity which reigneth on high in the Heavens being kindled Aug. Ep. 29. ad Hieron and kept up by the vision of the glorious face of GOD but I will say with St. Augustine that no man hath such a Charity upon earth ours here is but begun and impersectly formed Yet the Law requireth of us a Charity full and entire and perfect in every particular Surely then that which we for present have is not able to satisfie the Law nor by consequence justifie us But others conceive that by this perfection which Charity is the bond of the integrity and unity of the Church is to be understood for that the perfection of bodies doth properly consist in the collection and colligation of the parts whereof they are compos'd those that want any one of them being not in a condition to be called perfect These authors therefore make account that Charity is here stil'd the bond of perfection because 't is it that joyneth and bindeth all the faithful together by means of the mutual love they bear to one another For my part Dear Brethren I think we must joyn together these two expositions and reduce them to one for this end taking the Apostle's words the bond of perfection as simply importing that Charity is a perfect bond by an Hebraism very frequent through the whole Scripture as when 't is said a man of sin or a man of peace to signifie a sinful man Rom. â— 26 or one that 's peaceable or pacifick affections of infamy for infamous affections and so in a multitude of other places Here then in like manner the Apostle says a bond of perfection instead of a perfect bond an exquisite bond capable of binding up in perfection both all Christian Vertues in every faithful soul and all the faithful in the Church with one another For as concerning Vertues Charity binds them together both by that common principle whence it causeth them to spring to wit love of our neighbour and by that common end unto which it directeth them namely his benefit and edification It gathers up and puts all of them together in its bosome not leaving one out of its enclosure because they are all necessary for it mercy to comfort those whom it loves benignity to succour them humility to win them gentlenesse to please them patience to conserve them and in fine all the rest to acquit it self of those duties it would do them And as for the faithful who knows not that Charity is the perfect bond of their union The considerations of blood of state of interest and of pleasure do sometimes bind other men together but it is with a great deal of imperfection these unsure bonds being daily broken and so badly compacting the persons they inclose that they are soon separated and do sometimes even fall foul with and rend one another But Charity is in very deed a perfect bond that uniteth those whom it ties together so close and with such firmnesse as neither the accidents of fortâ—ne as they call them nor the mutations of the earth nor death it self which ruines all other unions and conjunctions in the World can loosen them or separate them from one another It was this sacred bond that heretofore made all the beleevers at Jerusalem to be of one heart and of one soul It 's a bond Acts 4.32 that all the force of men and elements can neither break nor untye a bond stronger than death and the grave as the mystical Spouse sings in that excellent Song It doth not only joyn the souls of the
spirit and knit together by one and the same Faith Hope and Charity No one hath part in the Kingdom of Heaven who lives not in the communion of this body Sure then it 's one of our greatest concernments to maintain peace among our selves and to put it as the Apostle gives us order in the highest place of our hearts that it may govern with supremacy all our thoughts all our motions and sentiments For there are no natural bodies but their members do conspire and live with one another in a perpetual and inviolable peace The societies of States and Families which are bodies but of another kind namely political and oeconomical are governed in the same manner their primary and most sacred law is that all the orders and persons of which they are compos'd have peace with one another Now if this hath place both in nature and in the societies of mankind how much more ought it to be observ'd in the Church which is a divine a coelestial and supernatural body Our own interest doth naturally require it For as war doth weaken and ruine the States into which it thrusts its self and whose members it divideth so on the contrary Peace establisheth fortifieth and conserves them according to that saying of our Saviour Matt. 12 2◠Every kingdom divided against its self shall be brought to nought and every City or house divided against it's self shall not stand The Apostle addeth in the close and be ye thankful which some referr to the same scope that the rest of the Text hath as if he intended that those thanks we owe to GOD for the free favour He hath shewed us in receiving us unto peace with Him do also evidently oblige us to maintain peace with our brethren And I acknowledge the argumentation is good and pertinent Yet it is better to take this clause for an exhortation he maketh us in general to be thankful towards GOD and towards men For as ingratitude is one of the blackest and most detestable vices expresly enrolled by the Apostle among the marks of those wretched times whose extreme corruption he foretells in the second Epistle to Timothy so is it sure that gratitude 2 Tim. 3.2 or thankfulness is a vertue most necessary of any and in my opinion he went not very wide from the truth who called it the mother of all other vertues Cicers It enkindleth piety in our hearts raiseth up the love of GOD and of His CHRIST and carrieth us to serve and obey Him and by consequence to exercise all honesty and vertue It is certain that upon this account no man sins without ingratitude Add hereto that thankfulnesse is the source of all the services and duties we persorm to our Princes to our Countrey to our Parents to our Superiors and all that have obliged us offices as you know that have an huge extent in 〈…〉 it's with a great deal of reason that the Apostle 〈…〉 give us charge also touching Thackfulnesse Dear Brethren These are the three Vertues which he tells us of in this Text. Let us not neglect any one of them But embrace them all three and deck our lives internally and externally with them In the first place above all let us put on Charity as the soul of Christianity the perfect bond of your union the mark of GOD's children the abridgement of all our duties and the mother of all Vertues Having it you have all and without it you have nothing Without it all the profession you make of the Gospel your prayers your religion and your services are but an empty noise a sounding brass 1 Cor. 13.1 as the Apostle speaks and a tinkling cymbal Because the Israelites wanted this GOD had all their devotions and all their sacrifices in abomination How much more will He reject yours if you have the impudence to present Him any without Charity Now that His Son JESUS hath so magnifically discovered to you the necessity and excellency of it For what can you alledge any longer for excusing your selves from this duty Nature it self verily sufficiently obliged you afore to love your neighbours since that they are your brethren even after the flesh issued from the same Adam and the same Noah animated by the same Spirit clothed with the same body born and bred upon the same earth and if you devest your selves of all the difference that vanity and opinion hath created you will see that in truth there is none at all between you and them You are subject to the same accidents they are and the death that at last brings them down will no more spare you than it does them Having so strict a conjunction with them you ought to look upon them as your other selves and love them as your neer relations and not account any thing that betides them forein or indifferent The Heathen who knew no more had the understanding to draw this conclusion from it But the Cross of our LORD and Saviour hath discovered to us other reasons of Charity that are much more excellent and much more pressing For He so loved men that He died to save them Christian how can you hate or despise persons whom your Master hath so much loved and esteem'd upon whom you see His blood whereby they have been wash'd and purified together with your selves His Spirit with which they have been sealed as well as you The first-fruits and earnests of that heavenly inheritance unto which they and you are called to live eternally together in the same It 's by that they are to be considered and not by what they are upon this earth which with the whole heap of all its pomps and riches and nobility and honours and other pieces of vanity is but a figure that passeth away and perisheth If your neighbour hath nothing on the earth if he be despised and accounted the filth and off-scouring of the world as the Apostle speaks remember that he hath his share in Heaven that he is an heir of this eternal Kingdom the child of GOD and brother of JESUS CHRIST Let this dignity of his which is so high and so precious in the sight of GOD and His Angels induce you to love him to tender him and apply your self to him let it mitigate your resentments if he hath offended you let it stretch for your hands to a ready communicating of the succour of your alms of your consolations and of your good offices if any necessity of his does call for them For such is the nature of true Charity it loves not in word and with the tongue but indeed and in truth Let ours then abound in alms and in beneficence unto the poor in consolations of and in good offices to the afflicted Let it be firm and constant Let not our brethrens ill successes no nor their offences if it befall them to do us any be ever able to break this sacred bond of perfectnesse which spiritually joyneth us and them together in our
together with that good intention he bringeth with him unto such encounters diligently discern the persons he is engaged with not only in respect of the different conditions they are of in the world or in respect of their diverse capacity but also principally in regard of their humour and their disposition in reference to religion For they that are without have not all of them an equal aversion for ours There are some that have a sweet and an humane and tractable spirit and that hate not our persons though they approve not our sentiments There are others that are furious and look not upon us but as monsters whom they could with all their hearts as one may say devour For it 's the property of errour and of superstition to inspire their zealots oftentimes with these cruel and inhumane passions You shall again meet with spirits who though perhaps they rise not to this excess of rage yet are retchless and obstinate and having smothered or as St. Paul speaks fear'd up with an hot iron all sentiments of true conscience reason and honour are wilfully become a prey to errour and have stop'd up their ears and all the entrances into their understandings against the words and lights of truth with a determinate resolution not to admit any thing that crosseth their opinions and rather to renounce the quality of reasonable creatures then the maxims of their false religion That there must be very different demeanour towards these diverse sorts of persons there is no one but sees And our saviour plainly tells us as much when notwithstanding the order He gives His Apostles to publish His truth on the house tops He yet adviseth them expresly elsewhere Mat. 7.6 not to cast their pearl before swine and the reason He annexeth is considerable lest saith He they tread them under their feet and turn again and rend you plainly signifying by these words as experience sufficiently confirms that the spirits of those He speaks of are irritated and inflamed by that very endeavour which is used to cure them and that they are so far from amending as they become more fierce and more cruel upon it But now this discrimination of persons is not made for the having in sequel the liberty to hate the one and love the other For a Christian's religion permitteth him not to hate any man it indispensibly obligeth him to love all whatever be their nature or their religion or their disposition towards us yea it requireth him even to bless those that curse him Mat. 5.44 and do good to them that persecute him and make prayers and votes for them that crucifie him He considers not these differences of men but for the regulation of his deportment for the diversifying not of the passions of his heart but of the actions of his life towards them For though his carriage be different in one manner to some and in another manner to others yet his heart is the same towards all and to say true it 's the love he hath for them rather than any other reason that makes him to deal diversly with them To come then unto the choice of such means as are necessary and may be sutable for the end that we propose unto our selves in this kind of carriage Christian wisdome excludes from the number first all evil actions all actions that are contrary to piety or justice We owe this respect not only to GOD and our own consciences but also to men and especially to such as are without that we at no time do any ill before them For unjust or impious actions beside the venome they have in themselves have also this bad property that they are directly contrary to the end we ought to have in our deportment towards persons without which is as we have said the winning them to CHRIST Instead of attracting and bringing them on such actions drive them off and disgust them at the thing inducing them to judge ill of our religion by the ill fruits it produceth in us and to suspect that our belief is like our works and our Gospel as false as our lives are foul It was one thing that Nathan noted in King David's sin Thou hast made enemies saith he 2 Sam. 12.14 to blaspheme the Name of GOD And St. Paul in the evil lives of the Jews Thou saith he that makest thy boast of the law Rom. 23.24 by transgressing the law dishonourest thou GOD For the Name of GOD is blasphemed because of you among the Gentiles The Heathen heretofore took like offence at the debauches of bad Christians and did not forbear to reproach them with it The men vant said they that they are delivered from the tyrannie of Satan and dead unto the world yet their affections and lusts do no less overcome and master them than ours do us whom they call slaves of Satan For what serves this Baptisme wherewith as they pretend they have been wash'd and that Spirit which as they say doth govern them and that Gospel which they make so great a noise withal since their whole life is full of filth and flesh and disorder Accordingly you see how the Apostle among other reasons which he alledgeth to divert the faithful from things contrary to justice and honesty doth not forget to urge this for one that the Name of GOD saith he and his doctrine be not blasphemed 1 Tim. 6.1 and in another place that the word of GOD be not blamed and a little after that ye may make the doctrine of GOD our Saviour honourable in all things So the first thing we owe to those that are without is a pure and constant innocence in all our treating with them The beginning and the first point of prudent converse in this behalf is that we neither say nor do any thing in all the communication we have with them which they may justly accuse of wanting devotion towards GOD or of covetousness or cruelty or any other unseemly or unjust passion towards themselves But after abstinence from evil we owe them also the performing and practising of that which is good first by rendring to them readily and uprightly all that is their due by the laws of GOD and of Nations to Princes fidelity and obedience to Magistrates respect to Kindred and Countrey-men amity each in their degree Rom. 13.7 and as St. Paul saith else-where tribute custome fear honour to whomsoever either of 'em doth belong not defrauding any one of his right nor lying indebted unto any Let Soveraigns see us zealous for their service private men round and sincere and trusty in all the affairs we have with them religious observers of our contracts and our words honest debtors milde and humane creditors courteous and helpful neighbours Let them not find us faulty in reference to any of the offices of an honest and a civil life For GOD forbid that we should ever admit into our hearts so impious and barbarous and inhumane a conceit as
reason to take the pains himself to form our speech on such occasions namely when we are to entertain those without about our sentiments in matter of religion For certainly this is the tenderest part of all our converse with men and that which would be managed with greatest exactness It is a very slippery passage and the events frequently are of great importance and have long and considerable consequences for good and for evil according to mens different carriage in it And if there be any case in which the tongue hath any reason to vant of great matters Jam. 3.6 as St. James saith without doubt it is in this an answer here as it is qualified being capable of amending or empairing the condition of an whole Christian people a sage and moderate discourse having sometimes averted or stayd the persecution of the Church and appeased the rage of its enemies whereas on the other hand a speech though for substance true yet being indiscreet and ill-placed hath often inflamed the hatred of the mighty and troubled the Church's peace and caused a thousand disorders and devastations The Apostle then would have us on this occasion that is when we speak with those without more than on any other govern our lips with so much judgement that there may not a word break out but what is seasoned as it ought to be Let your speech saith he be alwaies with grace seasoned with salt He presupposeth in the first place and precedently to other things that it have its principal vertue to wit truth which is the soul of it according to that general rule he elsewhere gives us Eph. 4.25 to speak truth every one with our neighbour But in conjunction herewith his intention is that our speech have these two further qualities first that it be with grace and secondly that it be seasoned with salt The grace he requires in it is not that which is given to a discourse by the ornaments of Rhetorick which respecteth only the pleasing of the ear and consisteth in a choice of elegant words and in a sweet and grateful composition The grace a Christian ought to seek for and have in his speech is so to utter truth as it offend not the hearer that it express our minds without exulcerating his that it have neither gall nor venome nor virulency that it be simple humble and modest without reviling without scoffing and other such stings as may inflame those whom we speak to The other particular he addeth namely that it be well salted that is prepared and as it were seasoned with an exquisite prudence does referr to the same thing for substance For as salt doth desiccate meats and eat out the moisture and putrid humour of them leaving a sharpness in them pleasing to the taste so this Christian prudence which he would have all our speech imbued with works out of it all that it might have in it superfluous and noxious and tempers it in such sort that the sorce and vigour which it leaves it pleaseth the spirit and enters gratefully into it The masters of common Rhetorick would too that there be salt in their Scholars speeches But it is not that which must season a Christian's deliveries By this salt which they make such account of they mean certain pleasantnesses that border upon raillery and jesting Expressions that are quick but offend not and touch the Spirit but do not gall it We for our part do pass by this artifice and draw the salt wherewith our speeches are to be impregnated from a quite other vein even an holy Christian prudence which avoids all that may displease or scandalize our neighbour and chooseth what is proper to edifie him so seasoning discourse that nothing unsavoury or insignificant be uttered which might disgust him at our persons or our religion This salt cleanseth our talk first of all discourses that are either noxious and dangerous as those that lead to viciousness or vain and fruitless and secondly of all that may offend those we talk with and alienate them from our religion For this end that knowledge is necessary which the Apostle speaks of in the following clause that you may know saith he how ye ought to answer every one It 's clear that this grace of speech seasoned with salt doth not teach us how we ought to answer every one but on the contrary this science or knowledge when we have it seasoneth our speech with its necessary grace So that whereas the Apostle saith that ye may know it it must be understood of the event and success as if he had said let your speech be with grace and seasoned with salt so as it may appear you know how to answer every one Or the word know which he useth in the original must be taken for as knowing and as judging and discerning how we ought to answer every man First his calling our discourses an answering does intimate that we should not cast our selves upon such kind of conferences inconsiderately nor enter on them but with judgement and advisednesse being called to it either by some one's demand or by the voice of such a necessary occasion as obligeth us to speak Then again he shews us that we ought to diversifie our speech according to the difference of persons and in this it is that that discerning of persons which we touched at afore must do us service There are those to be met with whom it would be best not to speak to at all The dispositions of some may suffer a firm and free discourse The temper of others requireth a more soft and tender treatment As you see that meats for several bodies must be diversly prepared according to their different constitution so we should diversly season our speech according to the diversity of spirits Such Dear Brethren is the holy and wholsome lesson that the Apostle gives us in this place Practice we it diligently and regulate by it our speech and deportment in all the commerce we have with those without Hide we not our sentiments in religion from them but explain our selves to them in such a manner as may be proper both for their edification and our own satety First let us never speak of them but in season and when occasion offers its self for it do it with that gravity and decency that 's due unto so high and so important a subject Next let us take out of our speech all the stings that might incense those that hear us Let not it have in it any thing reproachful or offensive any thing that scenteth of hatred or contempt Let it be sweet and full of affection and respect Let it bear the image of a well-disposed and a truly charitable soul and breath nothing but the good and the edification of our neighbour And as for truths themselves let it discover and with full liberty expose such as are grateful to our adversaries as thanks be to GOD there are many in particular I make bold to
link Him either with the world or with superstition And this verity that our hearts cannot have true and solid comfort but in JESUS CHRIST alone is so evident that error it self when it is pressed home is constrained to acknowledg it After sufficient dispute about the merit of its works and large boast of the worth of its satisfactions and of the value of its Pontifical indulgences Bellarmin of Justif i. 5. c. 7. and of the Intercession of its Saints it confesseth that by reason of the uncertainty of our own righteousness the safest course is to put all our confidence in the sole mercy of GOD. In other cases which concern our divertisement only I think a man may sometimes without blame chuse the longest and most hazardous way In the case of our Salvation it is an excess of folly without doubt not to take the safest Since by your own confession my doctrine or rather the doctrine of the Gospel is the safer suffer me to hold to it and to pity your imprudence who do amuse the world with that which your self confess to have less of safety and more of hazard in it But I return to the Apostle who having said That he combateth for these faithful people that their hearts might be comforted addeth in the second place they being joined together in charity Their Seducers troubled their Union and casting in a new doctrine among them as a matter of contention ruined their fraternal concord as much as in them lay drawing them into diversity of minds from whence ariseth contrariety of affections It is therefore also for the preventing of this disorder and for the preserving of union in charity among them that the Apostle had so great a conflict For as the Sea abideth peaceable and united during a calm but riseth all in waves that violently dash on one another when the wind begins to bluster So false teachers which are as the winds and gusts of hell do no sooner fall upon a Church but they disturb its peace and put all the members of it in commotion parting them asunder mutinying them and making them miserably clash with each other to their common ruin and the joy of their enemy But S. Paul teacheth us here that the mutual conjunction of the faithful in charity is necessary for the consolation of their hearts to the end saith he that their hearts may be comforted they being joined together in love Indeed what joy and what comfort can a good soul have in the trouble of division Considering withal that JESUS CHRIST who is the only source of our joy doth not communicate Himself to any but such as have a true charity who abide conjoin'd in his body by the Lands of one and the same fame and love In fine the third benefit which the Apostle desireth to preserve among the Colossians and their Neighbours is the abounding of a full and an assured knowledg of the mystery of GOD being joined in charity and in all riches of certainty of understanding in the knowledg of our GOD and Father and of CHRIST This order is well worth the noting For these three things which he hath ranked together here are of such a nature that the first depends upon the second and the second upon the third Consolation upon union in charity and union in charity upon knowledg This last is as the first degree upon which charity is rais'd up and charity as the second which sustaineth the third to wit Consolation Of these three Jewels one cannot be had without the other And as the consolation of the LORD cannot be enjoy'd without the sweetnesses of charity so charity cannot be had without the lights of knowledg But the Apostle doth not simply name that knowledg which he desireth in the faithful He describes it in stately manner as he is wont and intimateth as he proceeds the principal qualities it ought to have which he briefly compriseth in these words all the riches of full certainty of understanding that is to express this Hebrew phrase in the idiom of our own language all abundance of understanding with full assurance and satisfaction He would have therefore first that the knowledg of a Christian be understanding that is that he do perceive and see in the clearness of coelestial light those verities which GOD hath revealed to us not that we are bound to comprehend them all and penetrate the nature of them to the bottom for being the most of them Divine and Supernatural this is impossible for us but that we ought to know what is revealed to us of them because otherwise we should be in danger every moment to be deluded and to take the vain traditions of men for things taught of GOD. Whence appears how far that hood-winkt faith wherewith our adversaries do content themselves is from the knowledg of a Believer This faith if interrogated about Evangelical truth refers it self to the Church in it being ignorant all the while of what it believes and consequently having no spark of understanding Black is not more contrary to white nor darkness to light than this fantasm of faith shall I say or of ignorance to the knowledg which the Apostle here requireth in us He would have the faithful to be intelligent and these people understand nothing at all nay do boast of their ignorance imagining that it is not without merit It is therefore the faith not of a Christian away with such a thought nor of the Collier as they call it no nor of a man indued with reason but the faith of a brute which hath no understanding as the Psalmist sings Secondly the Apostle willeth that we have not meerly understanding but riches yea all riches of understanding that is a great and perfect abundance of knowledg that we be rich in this kind of wealth that we be ignorant of none of the mysteries of Divine truth that we know not the elements or the first maxims of it only but all the inferences that are necessary to guide our lives and to guard us from the ambushes of Satan amid which we go Otherwise how shall we discern the voice of the chief Shepherd from the voice of a stranger to flâ—e from the one and follow the other Whereby you see again how contrary to the doctrine of this holy man the preaching and practice of those of Rome is who license their people to be ignorant and do blame such as not contenting themselves with the first and plainest lessons of Christianity do study the bottom of this saving wisdom outragiously decrying this laudable affection as if it were the way to heresie and hell Finally S. Paul would have this intelligentness of a Believer to be besides its abounding with an entire certainty and assurance making use of a word which he often puts to signifie a full and an assured perswasion when we hold things which we believe to be sure and indubitable For though matters of faith be not laid open either to
the senses or the reason of men yet the truth of them is so evident so beautiful and so well marked that as soon as the clouds of those passions and prejudices which hide it from us are removed from before the eyes of our understanding by the hand of the holy Spirit â—t beams forth and shines into our hearts with exceeding brightness and makes it self to be believed and embraced for what it is indeed Thus must it be known with certainty and not with doubting that we henceforth be no more children Ephes 4.14 wavering and carried to and fro with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and by their cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive as the Apostle speaks elswhere Whereby you see how false the opinion of Rome is which makes the belief of Christianity to depend upon the authority and testimony of her Prelates I pass by the extream weakness and vanity of this pretended foundation which hath been verify'd by a thousand experiments Whatever it be in other respects this is manifest that since they fasten the people's knowledg there they must of necessity confess that their faith ought to change if any change do happen in the doctrine of their Prelates whence it follows that then it is not certain nor assured nor such a knowledg as the Apostle requireth in us whose property is such that though Paul himself or Angels from heaven should come and preach the contrary it would abide not withstanding even under such a supposal still firm and unmoved and rather anathematize Apostles and Angels from heaven than let go that Divine verity which it hath believed and known so strong is the sense it hath of its excellency But the Apostle having thus described the nature of true faith or a Christian's understanding doth lastly confine it within the bounds of its true subject when he adds the knowledg of the Secret of our God and Father and of Christ This restriction is necessary because seducers do boast of their traditions too as if they were a piece of wisdom worthy of our faith and it may not be doubted but that the false teachers against whom the Apostle intends to dispute did deal in such manner To arm us against their vanity he declares expresly that the understanding he requireth of us is a knowledg not of what Philosophers do talk in their Schools about the nature of the world nor of what Seducers do bring forth from their vain imaginations but only of the Gospel of our LORD JESUS CHRIST without which there is nothing but error and folly He calls it a Secret or a Mystery because it was a verity hidden with GOD and incomprehensible to our minds as we have said otherwhere He saith that it is the Secret of GOD our Father both because He is the Author of it who hath reveal'd it to us of His Grace and because He hath manifested Himself therein discovering to us in the Gospel all that we need to know of His nature and will for attaining to Salvation He adds in the end and of CHRIST for the same reasons it being evident that it is the LORD JESUS who brought this holy doctrine from the bosom of the Father and set it in our view by the Ministry of His Servants and that also it is He who is the principal Subject of it as our only Mediator without whose conduct and merit it is impossible to have any part in true happiness It s of this mystery of CHRIST JESUS that the Apostle desired the Colossians might have a full firm and distinct knowledg for to abide knit together by charity and by this means enjoy a true and solid consolation This is the treasure which he is afraid least they should lose It 's to preserve it to them that he undergoâ—th so much pain and so many combats Dear Brethren his desire teacheth us our duty Since we aspire to the same happiness that the Colossians afore us have done since we serve the same Master and live under the same Discipline let us labour to get and keep for ever the same good things which the Apostle wisheth them GOD of His great mercy offereth them liberally to us and the fault will be ours if we do not partake of them â— for the Knowledg of his Mystery He presenteth us the treasury of it in His hoâ— Scriptures This source of light is not shut up and inaccessible unto you as it to a great part of the world and even to many that call themselves Christians but opened and made obvious Draw out of it the wisdom of heaven reading studying and searching those Divine books night and day We do not envy you this sweet and happy communication as the Pastors of our adver saries dea with their flocks We could wish as yerwhile Moses did that all GOD's people werâ— Prophets It 's a science that admitteth all ages all sexes and all conditions of men the Author of this holy doctrine having so temper'd it as it is accommodated to the capacity of every sort of persons There are in it deeps to exercise and humble the greatest Spirits there are facilities to instruct and content the least It is an abyss where Elephants may swim and a shallow where Lambs may wade But as all are capable of this science so there is no person but it is necessary for It 's the key of the Kingdom of heaven the spring of piety the root of sanctity the seed of true life Study it carefully Hearken to the teaching of it here meditate on it at home with deep intentiveness beseeching GOD with prayers and tears to open your hearts and write His doctrine in them Content not your selves with having learned some points of it Take no rest till you know all its wonders till you have attained not simply understanding but all riches of understanding as the Apostle here speaketh Urge not to me that vain and cold excuse which is in the mouths of many that you are not Ministers and therefore need not be so knowing These Colossians were Ministers no more than you and yet you see what the Apostle doth desire for them and afterwards he will enjoyn that the word of CHRIST do dwell plenteously in them in all wisdom Why are you less exposed to temptations for your not being Ministers are the Devil and the World less ardent or less obstinate in setting upon you We are all engaged in the same war and have all need of the same arms Is it Captains only and Officers that ought to be armed Is it not necessary for private Soldiers The knowledg of the Mysteries of the Gospel is the armor of all Christians and the Scripture is the publick Magazine whence both one and the others should fetch it But that it may do you service at your need this knowledg must be also deeply radicated in your hearts you must have it with a full assurance as the Apostle saith It should not sleightly