the Scripture calleth simply the one and the other of these two persons man because of their advantage and their holding the first and principal rank each of them in his kind For the same reason again it gives the one and the other of these two persons the name Adam because they are each of them the Adam that is to say the Father and author of his order the one of sin and death the other of righteousness and life But to distinguish them it cals the one 1 Cor. 15.47 the first man and the first Adam the other the second man and the last Adam The former him who having corrupted himself by his disobedience hath also infected us leaving us vice and the curse for an inheritance The latter Him who having repaired our sault by His obedience hath given us righteousness sanctity and immortality Adam is stiled the first man and JESUS CHRIST the second for that the one's corrupting preceded the other's repairing and reforming Adam first defiled and poisoned his nature by sin and then JESUS CHRIST manifested His full of grace and truth It 's upon the same consideration that Adam is called the old man and JESUS CHRIST then ne Taking in withal that the first Adam shall be destroyed whereas the second remains for ever For its the custome of Scripture to call that old which is ready to be done away and that new which is firm and lasting But because each of these two men doth communicate to those that are his the form and condition of his nature according to that Scripture-principle that what is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the Spirit is Spirit thence it comes that St. Paul giving the effect the name of its cause by a figure ordinary in all languages calls that form and condition of nature which each of us receives from the first Adam by carnal birth the old man and likewise that form and condition which the faithful receive from JESUS CHRIST by spiritual regeneration the new man This is that he means here when he speaks of putting off the old man and putting on the new and else where in a passage like to this the truth saith he which we have learnt in JESVS is that we put off the old man concerning the former conversation who is corrupted by the lusts that seduce him and that we put on the new man created after GOD in righteousness and true holiness Now as to that form of nature which we all receive from the first Adam by our carnal birth every one well knoweth what it is and in what it consisteth For the Scripture declareth and all mens experience also teacheth that the nature of the children of Adam is extremely corrupt and vicious smitten in the understanding with an horrible ignorance and blindness and full of errors and false and pernicious maxims infected in the will with violent and enraged love of a man's self of the flesh and of the earth with bruitish affections and passions This nature is nothing but pride ambition injustice avarice luxury envy hatred malignity imprudence furiousness cruelty and inhumanity Such are all Adam's progeny while without the communion of JESUS CHRIST There are no others born upon the earth and whatever difference is between men in regard of climate and colour and external appearance of life the blood they come of imprinteth this wretched form upon them all in common which seizing them at their birth groweth up and is augmented with age and exercise rooting its self in them and thrusting forth the habitudes of divers sins which in the end render them unsufferable unto GOD and their neighbours And if the providence of Heaven for the conservation of mankind did not represss the cursed secondity of this evil the disorder and the waste it makes would be much greater than it is and proceed to infinite It is then this mass of corruption this Hydra of vices that the Apostle calls the old man because it is the production of Adam our old and first stock in every one of us Hence it is easie to understand on the other hand what the new man is that is to say the form which JESUS CHRIST the principle of the second creation doth put upon each of them that are His. For it 's directly contrary to that of the first Adam and comprehends in it all graces and vertues in opposition to the other's vices as faith wisdom piety charity justice sweetness honesty temperance and in one word a sanctity like that of JESUS CHRIST the image of which it is also called It 's this that St. Paul here stiles the new man because it is the work and likewise the pourtraict of the LORD JESUS our new Adam And he describes it thus himself in this place For as to the old man he only names it without saying any more of it But as for the new he occasionally explains us the nature of it saying that it is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who created it In which few words he teacheth us first that it is created in us that is produced by the operation of a Divine power by reason whereof we are called the workmanship and the creatures of GOD and the Apostle saith else-where Eph. 2. â—â— that we were created in JESVS CHRIST whereas the production of the old man in us is not a creation but a natural operation For as it is indeed in our power to kill a man but there is none save GOD alone that can raise him up again so it was easie for Adam to destroy himself and us all with him but to recover and re-establish us belongs to GOD alone Adam could corrupt and deform our nature But neither he nor any of his 〈…〉 to repair or reform it into a new man This appertaineth to none but the Creator It 's the work of a Divine power Then again the Apostle shews us here who it is that createth this new man in us saying that it 's the same person after whose image it is created For it is clear that the new man is after the image of JESUS CHRIST It is then JESUS CHRIST that createth it in us Vain man give not the glory to your pretended free-will It appertaineth wholly to the LORD And we may truly say of this second generation what the Psalmist singeth of the first that it is the LORD the eternal word of the Father Psal 100. â— who hath made us and not we our selves But the Apostle in saying that this new man is renewed doth teach us a further very considerable thing to wit that this piece of our regeneration or the production of the new man is polish'd and perfected by little and little in us the Spirit of CHRIST working upon it during the whole course of our life on earth and adorning this its own creature by divers reiterated operations with the graces and spiritual beauties it ought to have until it attain to the
horrible is our corruptness The most adore their fetters and quit not the darkness of Egypt and horrours of Sodom but with regret To fetch them thence GOD must descend from Heaven and take them by the hand as yer-while Lot and his Children You know He doth deliver them from this black power of darkness when He dissipates their errour and ignorance causing His Sacred truth to shine into their hearts after so vive and so glorious a manner as they discern it notwithstanding all the illusions of Satan and the world Then the Empire which this impostor exercised over them vanisheth away They wonder how so weak clouds could hide from them so resplendent a light and this new flame or to say better this new Sun discovering to them the true countenance of things the false colours wherewith the Devil and the Flesh endeavour to disguise them have no more force upon them They then see as uncovered and nakedly the turpitude and horrour of idolatry of superstition and of Vice and on the other side clearly perceive the verity the beauty and the excellency of piety and sanctity This deliverance is absolutely necessary for having part in the inheritance of Saints unto which none is received who is not a child of light and hath not renounced the servitude of errour and of vice And I profess it is much to have shook off the yoke of darkness and be gone forth from its power Yet this is not all If the LORD should stop there we for all this should have no share in the divine glory of the heavenly Canaan It is of absolute necessity for admission there that we bear the marks of the Lamb and at our going out of darkness enter into His Holy light For this cause the Apostle after he had said that the Father hath delivered us from the power of darkness immediately addeth and translated us into the Kingdom of his well-beloved Son For though in effect these two benefits of GOD are inseparably joyned together yet notwithstanding they do constitute two different graces It is his goodness and not their nature that hath thus tyed them each to other Had not the counsel of His love otherwise ordered it might have come to pass that a man should be delivered from the power of darkness and yet not enter into the Kingdom of His Son but remain in such a liberty as Adam's was before he fell But now since no man hath remission of His sins without becoming a member of JESUS CHRIST by Faith and since all that have this honour are predestined by the good pleasure of the Father to be conformed to the image of their head and consequently to have part in His Kingdom and Glory there must of necessity be entring into his Kingdom or an eternal abiding under the power of darkness The Apostle by the Kingdom of the Son of GOD means that very thing which the Evangelists ordinarily call the Kingdom of Heaven that is the Church of our LORD JESVS CHRIST that blessed City builded by the ministry of the Apostles and Prophets upon the Son of GOD it 's only eternal and unmoveable foundation the state of the Messiah the new republique of GOD His royalty and priesthood It is very pertinently that he calleth it here the Kingdom of the Son of GOD because the inheritance of Saints being the matter in hand which none but a child of GOD can have part in this informeth us that we may not obtain this right and title but in the Kingdom of JESUS CHRIST alone since none but He the true and proper Son of GOD is able to convey divine adoption to us and it is for a like reason that He stileth Him the well-beloved Son of GOD even to the end we might confidently hope for all the grace and glory which the Father promiseth us inasmuch as we pertain to His wel-beloved Him in whom He is well-pleased whom He singularly affecteth and as perfectly as Himself His eternal delight and love Besides I doubt not but the Apostle had some aim to heighten the grace which the Father hath shewed us by this apt and clear opposing of the Kingdom of His well-beloved Son into which He hath transported us to that power of darkness the Empire of His enemy from which He hath delivered us GOD brought us into this blessed Kingdom when He gave us the faith of His Gospel the righteousness of His Son and the consolation of His Spirit signing us with the badges of His House and sealing us with His holy Baptism But the word transport or translate which the Apostle useth represents also the strength and vertue of this action by which GOD hath brought us into the Communion of His Son I acknowledge the operation of this grace of His is sweet and pleasant for it perswadeth it gaineth the heart it is accompanyed with the very great joy of him that receives it But withall it is potent and efficacious Nothing can resist it There is no rebellion nor hardness of heart but it subdueth Joh. 6.44 it draweth men to JESVS CHRIST as Himself expresseth it or as His Apostle saith here it translates them into His Kingdom This is that Beloved Brethren which we had to deliver you for the expositon of this Text. I wish that the same spirit which yerst indited it to the pen of the Apostle would please to engrave it in the lowest depth of our hearts with the point of a Diamond in uneffaceable Characters that we might have it day and night before our eyes that we might carefully peruse it and consult it in all the occurrences of our life This meditation would suffice to conserve in a constant and happy exercise of Christian piety and to guard us from all that disturbeth our sanctification or our comfort First it would enflame us with an ardent love of GOD and excite us to a sprightful and sincere acknowledgement of His benefits For what love what respects and what services do we not owe to this Soveraign LORD who hath vouchsafed to display so much mercy and goodness upon us who hath called us from that eternal death wherein we were sunk with the damned unto the possessing of the inheritance of His Saints Who hath made us meet to enter into the fruition of His light Who by a miracle of His power and wisdom hath plucked us from the yoke of the Devil hath delivered us from the unrighteous and murtherous power of darkness and to compleat His graces hath translated us into the blessed Kingdom of the Son of His dear love Who from brands of Hell that we were hath changed us into live and lightsome Starrs in His Firmament of dead doggs hath made us first-fruits of His Creatures and from slaves of Demons transformed us into Angels and from the accursed state of Satan raised us to the Sacred Fellowship of His Son to be henceforth His free-men His brethren and His members O love O goodness incomprehensible How have we
the other Even such is the case of true Believers and such as are but temporary Persecution and offence do not make the difference which is seen between them when the former do retain the Gospel and the others quit it This event only sheweth that the one were GOD's wheat and the others but chaff according to what S. John saith of Apostates They went out from us because they were not of us 1 John 2.19 that it might be made manifest that all are not of us The same is to be further seen evidently in the Parable of the Sower where the LORD saith expresly Mat. 13.13 19 21. that he that persevereth had heard the word and understood it and receiv'd it in an honest and good heart Whereas He saith of them who do revolt that one heard but understood it not another had no root in himself An evident sign that their disposition was different at first before the perseverance of the one and the fall of the others Whence appears how impertinent the Argument is which our Adversaries draw from the Apostacy of the latter to prove that the faith of the former may fail and on the contrary For if the wind carry away the chaff it doth not therefore follow that it shall also bear away the corn and if the storm beat down an house that 's planted on two or three stakes it is not to be said it may do as much to an House that 's founded on a rock If the blade that shoots forth and grows up suddenly in the sand without any bottom happen to wither at the first extreme heat that smites it this implieth not that the like may betide the corn which is deeply rooted in a good and fertile soil The other point which we have to observe is the assurance of true faith excellently represented here by the Apostle in these words which are full of a singular Emphasis If you continue in the faith being founded and firm contrary to what is taught in the Church of Rome that faith is in a continual agitation so as a Believer can have no assurance that he is for present in the state of Grace and much less yet that he shall persevere in it for the future In Conscience can it be said of these people as the Apostle saith here of the LORD 's true Disciples that they are firm and founded How may it be seeing they incessantly float in doubt and uncertainty and are miserablely in suspence between the hope of heaven and the fear of bell I pass by that other error of theirs which is yet more contrary to the Apostle's Doctrine namely their maintaining that the choicest faith may fail If it be thus how can it be affirm'd that those that have it are founded and firm Let us then hold fast the truth that 's taught us here and in divers other places of Scripture to wit that true faith abideth always and being founded on the Merit and the Death and the Intercession of JESUS CHRIST doth never fail The wind makes but the chaff to fly away it prevails not upon good grain It overthrows only the trees that are feeble and ill grounded It leaveth in their place those that stand upon good and deep grown roots And as an Ancient sometime said Tertul. de Paersc We may not account them prudent or faithful whom Heresie hath been able to change None is a Christian but he that persevereth to the end But I return to the Apostle who for the fuller Explication of this firm and not to be shaken faith which he requireth in us for the obtaining of salvation addeth further And if ye be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel Justly doth he joyn Hope unto Faith these two virtues being so straitly link'd together that they mutually succour each other and one cannot be had or lost without the other For first Hope is the suit of faith expecting with assurance the fruition of the the things that we believe so as when the perswasion that we have of them comes to totter it is not possible but the hope which was founded on it must come to ruine Again in the combats which we sustain for the faith hope is one of our principal supports while it is firm and vigorus in us it repelleth without difficulty all the strokes of the Enemy opposing to the fear of the evils wherewith he threatneth us and to desire of the good he promiseth us the incomparable excellency of the glory and felicity which we look for in the other world He that hopes for heaven cannot be tempted by the paintings and appearances of the earth For this cause the Apostle in another place compares hope to an Anchor which penetrating within the vail fastned and grounded in Heaven holdeth our vessel firm and steady amid the waves and agitations of this tempestuous Sea whereon we sail here below And it 's this in my opinion which the Apostle aims at here that the faithful might be established in the faith he willeth them to have still in their hearts the hope of heavenly bliss and never to suffer this Sacred and Divine Anchor to be taken from them They are in safety while it holds them fast But for the better expressing it he calleth it peculiarly The hope of the Gospel that is the hope which the Gospel hath wrought in us the expectation of those good things which it promiseth And so you see he referreth Hope to the Gospel as to its true and genuine object All the hopes that we conceive from other grounds are vain and failing There are none but those which embrace the promises of JESUS CHRIST that are firm and solid and such as never confound them that wait for them The Gospel promiseth us first the entire expiation of our sins and the peace of GOD in JESUS CHRIST His Son They therefore that seek this benefit in the Ceremonies and Shadows of the Law as the Galatians somtime did and the false Teachers who would have seduced the Colossians or that seek it in their own merits and the merits of Creatures they all I say and all that are like them let themselves be carried away from the hope of the Gospel Then again the Gospel promiseth us eternal life in the heavens by the grace of GOD in His Son Those therefore quit the hope thereof also who seek their felicity either in the earth or in heaven otherways than by the sole mercy of the LORD Whereby it doth appear how very pertinently S. Paul doth recommend this hope of the Gospel unto the Colossians For in the combat wherein they were engaged it was sufficient to preserve them from all the attempts of the Impostors What have I to do saith this Hope with the observation of your Disciplines or the quirks of your Philophy since I abundantly have in my Gospel all the good things which you vainly promise me But because it is ordinary with false Teachers to abuse the name
be put in prison of all the force it had to endamage him He effaceth it cancels it and makes it null He renders useless all the preparatives of Justice against his friend He puts the Adversary and all his Advocates to silence He stops the mouth of the Judg that was even open to decree against him He stays the Serjâ—ants and secures his liberty from their outrages This is just the thing our LORD and Saviour hath done for us But what say I he hath done thus for us He hath done for us infinitely more than all that this comes to Death and the Curse were due to us as the wages of our sins The sentence of it was written in â—he obligation of the Law which we our selves had signed and wherein we had submitted to this penalty The Judg was ready and Execution could not be avoided The LORD JESUS moved with compassion and sent by the goodness of the Father puts himself in our room as Surety and Mediator for us He pays what we did owe. He suffers on the Cross the punishment we deserv'd His Cross therefore hath struck out that redoubtable obligation which was against us He hath abolish'd and made it of no effect He hath broken all the forces it was going to raise against us He hath pacified our Judg coufounded our Accusers staid the Officers and Ministers of Justice and sav'd our persons from the fetters and torments which were prepared for us But hence again appears how vain the error of those is who pretend that GOD doth but half-pardon our sins that having remitted unto us the fault he doth exact of us part of the punishment and make us suffer it either in this life here or after death in a certain partition of Hell which they call Purgatory How could they more rudely clash with the Apostle's Doctrine He saith that GOD hath effaced cancelled and abolished the obligation which was against us These men affirm that he still makes us pay some part of our debt Sure then our obligation is not yet torn It 's a thing unheard-of in the course of Justice to bring an Action against that Debtor whose Obligation you have effaced If it be torn if it be made void and of no effect you have no longer any right to draw him before the Judg much less to get him condemned to pay If GOD who doth nothing but according to Justice should make us pay any part of the penalties of our sins which he hath forgiven us the Obligation by virtue whereof he condemneth us is still in its full force But the Apostle protesteth that it hath been effaced and remains blotted and nailed to the Cross of CHRIST for ever The Obligation which was against us imported all the punishments both temporal and eternal that we were obnoxious unto It is voided and nulled We therefore do no longer owe any of them Fear not Christian you have to do with a faithful Creditor Having remitted to you your debt yea cancell'd the evidence of it and torn the Obligation he hath no intent at all after all this to demand any part of it of you I confess that the payment JESUS CHRIST hath made is of no use to such as remain in unbelief and though he hath in point of right nulled the Obligation which was against us yet their ingratitude and infidelity is a cause that they have no benefit from this kindness of his Even as the unthankfulness and obdurateness of that servant of whom we are told in that Parable in the Gospel did deprive him of the favour his Master had shewed him in forgiving the ten Talents he owed For GOD hath affixed this reasonable condition to the Covenant of Grace which he hath made with Mankind that the payment of our Debts made by our Surety should not be allowed to any but those that believe so as they that obstinately abide in incredulity have no share in that impunity or in those other benefits which this great Mediator hath obtained for us But as to the man that believeth and by a true faith applieth applieth to himself the death and blood and merit of the LORD JESUS there is no more any condemnation for him Rom. 8.1 as the Apostle elsewhere saith nor by consequence any punishment the obligation by virtue whereof alone he could be condemned at the Tribunal of GOD having been effaced abolished and fastned to the Cross of his Saviour Thus you see Beloved Brethren what that grace of GOD is which the Apostle hath here made known and by what means we may get part in it Sinners you that groan under the heavy load of your crimes that feel your misery and perceive the cords of that damnation in which the Law doth entangle you come unto the Cross of CHRIST and you shall find rest to your souls Your consciences accuse you and compel you to subscribe your own condemnation acknowledging the justness thereof But how just soever it be the Cross of JESUS freeth you from it forasmuch as it hath fully fatish'd for you Beware of the error both of the ancient and the modern Pharisees who pretend ability to pay what they owe and even more than they owe and to justifie themselves by their works that is by the Law The Law is the instrument of our condemnation and the ministration of our death and a man that would be justified by the Law commits no less an extravagance than he that to prove he owes nothing should produce in Judgment the Bills and Bonds he hath given his Creditors Confess you your debts Divest your selves of all presuming upon your own righteousness Declare that of your selves you are bound over to eternal malediction that you have deserv'd it and do present your selves naked before GOD who justifies the ungodly He will clothe you with the righteousness of his Son And you Faithful Brethren who are already entred into this blessed Covenant Live ye in peace and quietly wait for the fruit of your faith according to the promises of GOD. Let not the thundrings and lightnings of the Law make you afraid Let not that death with which it so severely menaceth the sons of men terrifie you at all Let not World or Devils the Executioners of its Justice astonish you JESUS CHRIST hath brought to nought all their strength by effacing the obligation that was against us Satan thou cruel enemy of our repose object not to us our sins We confess they are greater and yet more grievous than thou canst express Lay not before us that clause of our old Covenant which puts all that have sinned under the curse We confess we have merited this curse But know Satan if we have deserv'd death JESUS CHRIST hath suffer'd it for us and if we have committed sins worthy of thine Hell the Blood of the Son of GOD hath blotted them out His Cross hath made void that old piece upon which thou makest such a clamour that rough obligation with which thou incessantly
XLIX SERMONS Upon the Whole EPISTLE OF THE APOSTLE St. PAUL TO THE COLOSSIANS In Three Parts BY THAT FAMOUS MINISTER OF THE REFORMED CHURCH in PARIS Mr. John Daille Author of that Incomparable BOOK Intituled The RIGHT VSE of the FATHERS Translated into English by F.S. LONDON Printed by R. White for Tho. Parkhurst and are to be sold at his Shop at the Bible and three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chappel 1672. To the HONOURABLE Sr. Will. Courtenay Of Pouderham Castle in the County of Devon Baronet SIR THE Divine Epistle of S. Paul to the Colossians was not to rest in their hands but by his express order to be communicated unto the neighbouring Laodiceans as we read in the Epistle it self towards the end It would therefore seem a little congruous that these Sermons which expound it do undergoe a like disposal and not confined to the French to whom they were originally Preached be imparted to the neighbouring English The Author of them was He whom his Auditors at Charenton did frequently call for the beauty and richness of his Discourses the Silver-tongue Daille Readers here have applauded and do esteem highly for his Apologie and that exquisite Treatise of the use of the Fathers both which have for some years spoke our Language The learned all abroad do know him and value him for divers other excellent labours He signalized himself both at the Press and in the Pulpit and GOD was pleased to crown him in His service with the glory of a vigorous and venerable old age I confess I was none of the meetest to represent this Work of his and communicate it as I do nor did I design it at the entrance But a private exercise receiving some encouragement grew up and comes at length into a publication Neither am I without hope but that the known English civility for strangers will be shewed Mr. Daille though his Interpreter be no more then he is Yea while that Reverend man interpreteth here a great Apostle and presseth as he doth solid religiousness towards GOD Loyal Subjection to Princes and Superiours Peace and Love and every Vertue among men I would promise him Christian attention and consideration a calm and generous enduring of little discrepancies if any occurr and all the respect that befits a Minister of CHRIST Now Sir I deem it not improper to put into Your hand a piece which had its Original in France when I reflect upon the illustriousness of Your Ancestry sometime there I cannot but mind in particular how the Family was engraffed into the Royal House it self Peter a Son of Louis le Gros espousing the Inheretrix a Name and Arms of Courtenay so becoming the stock whence those Noble afterbranches issued which did spread forth on this and on that side of the Sea But the Dominion and Empire of GOD is equally over all the Kinreds and Kingdoms of the World and unto Him every one 's greatest and nearest relation I tender therefore the present Volume chiefly as spent upon the illustrating and enforcement of His holy mind and will and do beseech You to accept the gratitude which it is tendred withall That every Divine blessing may descend and rest upon Your Person and Affairs Your Vertuous Honourable Lady and all those sweet Branches about Your Table is the earnest and incessant Prayer of SIR Your Obliged and Affectionately devoted Servant F. S. TO MONSIEUR Monsieur du Candal LORD of FONTINAILLE Counsellour and Secritary of the KING House and Crown of France SIR I Present You these Sermons believing I owe this acknowledgement not only to the Friendship wherewith you honour me but much more to the edification and good offices the Church where I preached them receiveth now a long time from your piety For besides the fair example which your life giveth us a life full of vertue and honour always constant and equal in the profession and holy Exercises of the truth of the Gospel there hath been presented no occasion of doing service to the people of GOD either in the one or in the other of their times but you have embraced with zeal and managed with prudence So likewise we see that the Good and Merciful LORD you serve hath crowned your obedience with the benedictions of His Grace For in the inequality of seasons and the diversity of affairs He hath still rendred You acceptable both to those within and even to them without And which is the principal He hath preserved His Covenant in your house that neither the vanity of the world nor the scandal of the time hath been able to make any of the breaches there which we see with grief in other families To establish this pretious heritage of piety in your blood His Providence hath added to it by alliance persons excellent in knowledge and in merit in whose linage you daily see your own life renew and flowrish afresh It is true Sir you have also had your trials as no true believers are exempted from them But those which GOD hath dispensed to you have been so tempered with his goodness as I believe you may truly say that in this more than in any other passage of Your life He hath made shine forth the marveils of His grace towards You. Such was some years ago the bitter but blessed and happy death of the late Sir Your eldest Son taken away untimely and in the prime flower and vigor of His age This was without doubt a very dolorous stroke which cut down in a moment the sweetest of your hopes plucking from your embraces a Son as love-worthy as he was loved and whose deserving to say all in a few words was no less than the dignity of a Senator to which he was already arrived in the chief of the Parliaments of this Kingdom But how sensible soever His death was unto you it was notwithstanding accompanied with grace of GOD so visible and ravishing as I fear not to refresh Your memory of it well knowing it is no less dear and pretious to You for the piety and the high and truly Christian constancy He shewed in those last and happy moments of His life than troublesom and bitter for the mourning and sadness which it left on Your whole House As soon as His malady appeared to be what indeed it was He looked on Death without disturbance He prepared Himself for it with great courage and His air his eyes and all His discourses were full of resolution and contentment He comforted us all and amid the tenderness and resentments of such a separation never expressed ought of feebleness And though He left on earth of the dearest and sweetest one may here possess or desire yet He quitted it not only without regret but even with joy so firm was the hope or to say better so clear and assured the sight which the LORD JESUS then gave Him of the blisses and delights to which He called him He remained in this graceful and holy disposition even to
case as none of Creatures do more need the offices of our Charity neither is there any object worthier of the affection and succour of a good and generous soul than innocence hated and oppressed unjustly therefore it is that the Apostle noteth here by name the Charity of the Colossians towards all the Saints He joyneth these two Vertues together Faith and Charity because in effect they are inseparable it being neither possible nor imaginable whatsoever error list to say of it that man should believe and truly embrace GOD as his Saviour in JESUS CHRIST without loving Him and His neighbours for His sake or that he should love Him sincerely without believing in Him He puts Faith before Charity not for that it is more excellent on the contrary he elsewhere openly giveth the advantage unto Charity but because it goes first in the order of things requisite to salvation It is the blessed root whence Charity springs forth 1 Cor. 13. and all other Christian Vertues It is the foundation of the spiritual building the Gate of the Kingdom of Heaven the first fruits of the workmanship of GOD and the beginning of the second Creation As in the old Creation Light was the first thing He created so in the new one Faith is the first thing He produceth which the Apostle divinely expresseth to us elsewhere 2 Cor. 4.6 GOD saith he who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of GOD in the face of JESVS CHRIST After the Faith and Charity of the Colossians the Apostle adds in the third place the Happiness that was kept for them in the Heavens For the hope saith He which is reserved in Heaven for you Some knit these words with what he had now said of the Faith and Charity of the Colossians and understand that these faithful people laboured with alacrity in the exercise of these Vertues for the hope they had of the celestial Crown and reward according to what the Apostle saith elsewhere of Moses that He chose rather to be afflicted with the People of GOD Hebr. than to enjoy for a little time the delights of sin and esteemed the reproach of CHRIST greater riches than the treasures of Aegypt because saith he he had respect to the recompence And he teacheth us in general of all those that come to GOD that they must believe that GOD is and that He is a rewarder of them that seek him Ibid. v. 6. And from hence it followeth not at all either that our works do merit the glory of Heaven or that our affection is mercenary If we should not hope but for what we merit our hopes would be very miserable But knowing that GOD is faithful and constant we hope with assurance for the bliss which He of His meer grace promiseth us and the less we merit it the more love we conceive towards GOD who giveth it to us and the more acknowledgement and service ought we to render Him for the same And for this gratuitous salary which He promiseth us we look not on it as a prey after which we hunt and without which we would have no love for the LORD but as an excellent evidence of His infinite goodness as a testimony of His admirable liberality that love of GOD which shines forth in it is the thing pleaseth and ravisheth us most of all and which enflameth our faith our zeal and our affection to the service of so good and amiable a LORD though then we should bind what the Apostle saith of the Charity of the Colossians with the hope they had of the heavenly glory there would be nothing in this but what were conform to Evangelical Truth Yet it seems to me more simple and fluent to refer it to the third Verse where he saith that He giveth thanks to GOD for the Colossians having understood their faith and charity for the hope He addeth now which is reserved in Heaven for you For to consider the condition of these believers on the earth it seems there was no great cause to congratulate them for their faith and charity the afflictions which they drew on them rendring them in appearance the most miserable of men But though the flesh make this judgement of it the Spirit that seeth above visible things the Crown of glory prepared for the faith and charity of the faithful holdeth them for the happiest of all Creatures congratulates them and rendreth thanks to GOD for the inestimable treasure he hath communicated to them I know saith the Apostle that your piety hath it's tryals and exercises in this world But I forbear not to bless the LORD affectionately for that He hath given it to you I know the bliss that is prepared for you on high in the Sanctuary of GOD. He takes the word Hope here as often elsewhere for the thing we hope for to wit the blessed immortality and glory of the world to come I confess we possess it not yet for hope is the expectation of a good to come Rom. 8.23 That we are saved saith the Apostle is in hope but hope that a man seeth is not hope for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for But this good though absent and to come is as assured to us as if we had it already in our hands The Apostle shews it when he addeth that this Hope is reserved in Heaven for you It is a treasure which GOD hath set apart having fully prepared it already keeping it faithfully for us in His own bosome Whence it is that we make an assured account thereof for He hath deposited it in the hands of JESUS CHRIST in whom is hid our life and immortality so as if we make an assured account of things which a man of probity and honour keepeth in trust for us how much more certain should we be of the life and glory to come seeing GOD hath put it for us in the keeping of so faithful and powerful a depositary The place where this rich treasure is kept deposited for us confirms yet more the hope and excellency of it to us for saith the Apostle it is reserved for us in the heavens Fear not ye Faithful Your bliss is not on earth where the Thief steals or infidelity and violence make spoil where time it self ruineth all things where Crowns the best establisht are subject to a thousand and a thousand accidents Yours is on high in the Heavens in the Sanctuary of eternity lifted up above all the odd variations and inconstancies of humane things where neither our changes nor the causes that produce them have any access But this same place sheweth you besides the excellency and perfection of the bliss you hope for inasmuch as all celestial things are great and magnificent Weakness poverty and imperfection lodge here below Heaven is the habitation of glory and felicity In fine the Apostle toucheth briefly in the
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
in Darkness after the Spirit or after the Flesh and other like Phrases which all signifie a certain form and condition of life good or evil as it is qualified According to the stile of Scripture the Apostle saith here to the end that you may walk meaning that you may live that you may direct and form your lives But how will he that we walk worthily saith he as is seemly towards the LORD It is word for word in the Original worthily of the LORD or in a fashion worthy of the LORD But our French Bible hath faithfully represented the sense of these words it being evident that the Apostle intendeth we should lead a life that answereth to the honour we have of being Children and Disciples of JESUS the LORD His co-heirs and heirs of His Father He else-where often useth this manner of speaking or others altogether like it As when he exhorteth the Philippians to converse in such sort as may be worthy of the Gospel Phil. 1.28 Eph. 4.1 1 Thes 2.12 and the Ephesians to walk worthy of the Vocation wherewith they had been called and when in like manner he adjureth the Thessalonians to walk worthy of GOD who hath called them to His Kingdom and Glory The teachers of merits have drawn from these passages that proud name which they ordinarily give them calling them merits of condignity pretending that to walk worthy of GOD signifies meriting of life by their works properly and in the accompt of exact justice But they are evidently deceived For not to speak of the vanity of this presumption which Scripture and reason it self do thunder-strike a thousand wayes it is clear that to be worthy of any thing signifieth not at all in these passages the meriting it properly and exactly For who is there that would thus interpret the Apostles saying walk worthy of GOD that is lead a life that merits GOD There are people found that have opinion of themselves good enough to imagine they merit Heaven and the glory of the life to come There hath none been yet seen that I know who vaunted Himself to merit GOD. This language would be monstrous and surpass the pride of Devils themselves It 's too much presuming but to affirm that any merit the gifts of GOD. Common sense permitteth not a man to think or say that he merits GOD. As ill doth what the Apostle saith elsewhere suffer this gloss Converse in a fashion worthy of the Gospel and live in a fashion worthy of the Vocation of GOD. For who ever heard say that our works do merit either the Gospel or the Vocation of GOD a thing past and which we have already received from the liberality of the LORD before the having done any one good work It is clear that in all these places the worthiness whereof the Apostle speaketh is nothing else but a certain well-beseemingness arising from the correspondence that is found between us and the subjects whereof he saith we are worthy Just as when St. John Baptist exhorteth the Jews to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance he meaneth not that merit repentance but that answer thereto that are suitable to the sense we have of our own sin and of the Grace of GOD. In like manner here a life holy and full of piety and of good works is worthy of GOD not because it merits Him but because it hath some suitableness with His sanctity and glory It is worthy of the Gospel because it is correspondent to it and conform to what it requireth of us It is worthy of the Vocation of GOD because carried to things to which He calleth us and produceth the fruits which He demandeth of us Would you then know Christian what your life should be let it be worthy of the LORD St. Paul hath comprised all in these few words And as sometime a Prince faln into the hands of his enemy who demanded of him how he should treat him answered as a King signifying by that one word all the moderation and generosity he desired should be used towards Him So the Apostle in these two words embraceth the whole form of our carriage How shall we live Lead saith he a life that may be worthy of the LORD This is enough to let us understand that neither avarice nor cruelty nor hatred nor envy nor any other of the passions of the world must have any place in our manners but that justice charity and all other pure and celestial affections should shine forth in them that there should be mixed in them nothing base nor abject but that all should be great and generous and elevated above the dunghills of the Flesh Have then Believer this supream LORD continually before your eyes Interrogate your Conscience upon each of the things that are presented to you whether they be worthy of Him and do not any that may not be put in this rank Flee all that crosseth the quality of His disciple all that swerveth from the rule which He hath given you all that diverts you from the Kingdom to which He conducteth you This LORD is purity and sanctity it self He is entirely separate from sinners He never had any communion with vice This LORD is soveraignly good He hateth no man He prayed even for them that Crucified Him and did infinite benefits to them that injured and blasphemed Him This LORD neither possessed nor coveted the honours and grandeurs of the earth All His glory is divine and His grandeur celestial His discipline is like His life He enjoyneth us throughout nothing but a singular innocency sanctity and goodness and the good things He promiseth us are spiritual and not carnal the inheritance He hath purchased for us and to the possession whereof He leadeth us is in Heaven and not on the earth Upon this it's easie to judge what is this form of life worthy of Him which the Apostle commandeth us It is a life that hath resemblance with His wherein shine forth both the examples of His Divine Vertues and the marks of His doctrine and the badges of His house and the first fruits of His glory It is a life that treadeth under foot the baseness of all vices that disdaineth what the flesh and the world do promise to their slaves and beholding with contempt all that the earth adore hath no passion but for Heaven It 's a life sweet and humble and innocent that obligeth all men and injures none at all that without turning to the right hand or the left runs on and advanceth incessantly towards the mark of the supernal calling It 's thus you must live faithful soul if you would satisfie the light you have received of the knowledge of GOD. I confess it is an high design But neither is it for low and common things that GOD hath given you His Son and His Spirit If our infirmity makes fear let the power and the might of the LORD assure us And if there escape us sometime any act unworthy of Him as in
be restrained to this matter and we are precisely to understand that He is the beginning of this second work of GOD. JESUS CHRIST the eternal wisdom may say in respect of this second creation what it saith of the first that the Father possessed Him in the begining of His ways and that it is the same wisdom that projected prepared and executed all this great design of the renovation of the world First it is the Son of GOD who intervening at the beginning in the counsel of the Father took upon Him the expiating of Sin without which it was not possible to found this second Frame And though he actually did it not till the fulness of time yet His engaging His word for it being once accepted of the Father it had as much efficacy as if the thing it self had been then already executed and performed which makes the Apostle elsewhere say that JESVS CHRIST is the same both yesterday and to day and for ever He hath the same efficacy always as well before as after His manifestation Without this not a man could have been called into the state of Grace Therefore St. Paul saith in another place that GOD hath chosen us in JESUS CHRIST considering Him as the foundation of our election because out of Him there could not be salvation or happiness for any one of us He is therefore truly the beginning of this work since His merit is the foundation of the counsel GOD hath taken to make and form it as St. Peter also observes when speaking of the redemption wrought by the blood of the Lamb he saith expresly that He was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world But beside the merit of His Cross which was from all time present in the counsel of GOD He is further the beginning or the principle of the Church another way even by the operation and efficacy of His power having called unto GOD all the faithful that ever were It 's He that brought Abraham out of Chaldea It 's He that appeared to the Patriarchs and that led Israel in the desert and that inspired the Prophets Psal 110.1 Whence it comes that David calls Him his LORD He builded and kept up that whole ancient Church as well as the latter by the vertue of His word and Spirit But He is again the beginning of the Church in the quality of a pattern and an exemplary cause the faithful of all ages having all been as it were cast into His mould as the Apostle teacheth at the eighth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans saying that all those whom GOD hath fore-known He hath predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son And it 's to no purpose to object that this cannot be said of that time when He had not yet assumed that humane nature tempted on earth and crowned in Heaven unto which we are conformed For to this I answer first that though that nature were not really yet in being it is enough that its idea and image was in the mind of GOD for the assimilating and conforming His work thereto This sufficeth to shew that He is the beginning and principle of it But I adjoyn in the second place that this work the Church may be considered two wayes either in its beginnings while it is yet but forming or in its perfection as finished when it hath all the touches requisite to set it in the highest degree of excellency which it must abide in I confess the Church under the first consideration had its being before the Son of GOD was made man and raised up to Heaven But if you take it under the second it is evident that in this respect He is truly the beginning of this Divine work For no one was perfect before Him He is if I may so say the first piece fully ended that ever came out of the Fathers hand and His own No one of the rest is absolutely completed Their bodies are yet under the power of Death the last of our enemies CHRIST is the only one that hath altogether broken its bonds and raised up His body from the grave and clothed it with glorious immortality He is the first man of the new world that the universe ever saw and it 's in Him hath been shewed us the true form of that second nature which we hope for in the time to come but which none hath or shall have for the present save JESUS CHRIST alone It seems to be this properly that the Apostle here intendeth when he calleth Him the beginning or principle because he addeth the first-born from the dead which words as you see do evidently correspond with this sense St. John also giveth this quality to the LORD Rev. 1.5 Grace be unto you and peace saith he from JESVS CHRIST who is the faithful witness 1 Cor. 15.20 23. the first-born from the dead And St. Paul illustrates this expression elsewhere saying to the same purpose that JESVS CHRIST being raised from the dead was become the first-fruits of them that sleep And a little after In JESVS CHRIST saith he shall all be made alive But every man in his own order CHRIST the first-fruits afterwards they that are CHRIST's And otherwhere yet Act. 26.23 in the Acts he saith it was necessary that CHRIST should be the first that rose from the dead who might shew light to the people From all these places doth sufficiently appear what the Apostle signifieth when he saith that JESVS CHRIST is the beginning and the first-born from the dead to wit that He is the first of all mankind who was raised from the state of the dead and setled in glorious immortality that He is the first ear of this blessed harvest that was carryed up into the Sanctuary and offered in due season to the eternal Father untill the rest do become ripe This truth is throughly evident For of what other man but the Lord JESUS was it ever heard say that he arose from the dead and ascended into Heaven I know the Scripture telleth us of some dead that were raised before the resurrection of the LORD But this deprives Him not at all of the glory which the Apostle here giveth Him For that I may not alledge that those persons were raised from the grave not by their own force and vertue as JESUS CHRIST but by the touching or prayer of Eliah and Elishah and by GOD's command I say that the resurrection which St. Paul understandeth is the rising again unto glory and immortality It 's a being born again not to the former life which is terrene and fading but to the other which is celestial and incorruptible Who seeth not that in this sence there never was nor yet is any raised again except the LORD JESUS alone For the Son of the Shunamite Lazarus and the others of like quality at their coming forth of the grave did reassume that same natural and perishing life which they had laid down a life subject to
enmity to the end that being purified by the vertue of the Sacrifice of His Son and clothed with His righteousness by faith we might appear before the Tribunal of His grace without condemnation and without confusion But nothing compelleth us to pitch on this It is much better in my judgment to understand it of our sanctification than of our Justification First because the words themselves agree much better with it the Scripture as you know ordinarily expressing the gift of Regeneration by the word Holiness whereas it useth the word Justifie or pardon of our sins and not imputing them unto us when it would signifie the first benefit of GOD which we obtain by the imputation of the righteousness of CHRIST Secondly because the Apostle having already represented it unto us in those words that GOD hath reconciled us by the body of the flesh of His Son by death which do signifie that He hath received us into favour pardoning us all our sins as we have explained them it seems needless to repeat the same thing again In fine because both St. Paul and the other sacred writers are wont to joyn those two gifts of GOD our Justification and our Sanctification together as two graces that are inseparable and never go one without the other so as having spoken to us of the one it was not only convenient but also in some sort necessary 1 Cor. 1.30 1 Cor. 6.11 he should annex the other just as elsewhere having said that CHRIST is made unto us righteousness he immediately adds and sanctification and again in another place where having touched the filthiness of the former life of the Corinthians as here that of the Colossians he saith But ye are washed but ye are sanctified Here the Apostle doth not only knit these two graces together but moreover sheweth us the order and relation which they have the one to the other that the second to wit Sanctification is the end of the former that is of Justification He hath reconciled us saith he by the death of His Son to render us holy without spot and unrebukable before Him The Scripture teacheth us the same thing in divers other places as in St. Luke where Zachary saith that GOD sheweth us mercy and delivereth us out of the hand of our enemies that we might serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him And St. Peter in his first Epistle Luk. 1.74 75. 1 Pet. 2.24 CHRIST saith he hath born our sins in His own body on the tree that we being dead to sin might live unto righteousness And our St. Paul that JESVS CHRIST dyed for all that they which live 1 Cor. 5.15 might not henceforth live unto themselves but unto Him who dyed and was raised again for them and elsewhere again that CHRIST gave Himself for us Tit. 2.14 that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie us to be unto Him a peculiar people addicted to good works and in another passage altogether like that which we are upon Eph. 4.5 He loved the Church saith he and gave Himself for it that he might sanctifie it have cleansed it by the washing of water by the word and might present it to Himself a glorious Church having neither spot nor wrinkle nor other such thing but that it might be holy and unreprovable I insist upon this point because it is of exceeding great importance First you see by it what the dignity of Holiness is For since the end of necessity is always more excellent than the means which are used to compass it it is clear than sanctification being the last end of all the things that the LORD employs for our salvation is the greatest and most excellent of all His graces And so you know St. Paul positively declares that Charity which is for substance no other thing but sanctity is more excellent than either faith or hope and he proves it because neither the one nor the other of these two vertues shall have any place in Heaven as being but means and helps for our conducting thither whereas Charity as the last and highest perfection of our being shall eternally remain Secondly from hence appears how much carnal Christians do deceive themselves who pretend to salvation without sanctification Wretched men what do you Your pretention is a vain Chimera You pursue an impossibility For that salvation which you do desire is nothing for the main but that very holiness which you do refuse Both that faith and those other qualities which as you say you have serve only to sanctifie men Without this they are unprofitable things Suppose then that you have them if they do not change you if they do not fill your heart with love to GOD and with charity towards your neighbour in a word if they render you not holy they will advantage you nothing So far will they be from giving you immortality that they will aggravate your misery and sink you deeper into the abyss of death Never believe that GOD gave us His own Son clothed Him with a body of flesh delivered Him up to the death of the Cross that He reconciled us by such precious blood and wrought all these grand wonders which ravish Heaven and Earth that He might acquire us the priviledge to sin freely For far be it from so wise and so holy a Deity to be thought to have ever had such an extravagant and infamous a design He hath laid forth all the marvels of grace and love upon us that He might restore His own image in our nature that He might abolish sin out of it and transform us into new creatures pure and holy and in some sort like Himself and His Son in this respect I confess the description which the Apostle here giveth us of this grace of GOD in us is high and magnifique and that it seems to surmount the reach of believers while they are in the present life For of which of them can it be truly said while he remains in this world that he is Holy and without spot and unreprovable before GOD But to this I answer first that neither doth the Apostle affirm that this great work of the LORD 's in us is compleated in this life He sheweth us only what His purpose is and what the end of His grace and how good and glorious that holiness is wherewith He will cloath us For if we be truly His He will not leave us till He hath made us such as the Apostle's Text importeth even holy without spot and unreprovable Secondly I say that though the highest degree of sanctification in this life be much beneath that which shall adorn us in the next and that in comparison of it the same is defective yet it fails not of being true and of having all its parts though in a weak degree It is sincere and without hypocrisie and such in summ as the words of the Apostle in some sort agree to For true believers while
souldier The men of valour do deport themselves gladsomly on such occasions S. Paul goes yet further Rom. 5.3 He would have us to glory in such kind of tribulations and triumph because of them So did the Apostles who having been ignominiously whipt by the decree of the Council of the Jews rejoyced saith the Holy History that they were counted worthy Acts 5.41 to suffer shame for the name of JESVS I confess such joy in occurrences that would possess all other men with shame and sadness is strange I confess it is contrary to the sentiments of nature and doth exceed its strength Yet I affirm that it is just and for all that it is above the reach of our reason will be found a very rational joy That this may the better appear let us now consider the two reasons of it which the Apostle alledgeth here when he addeth And I do fill up the rest of the afflictions of CHRIST in my flesh for His body which is the Church The word and which knitteth these words with the foregoing is put here as in many other places of Scripture for one of those particles which hey call causal I rejoyce in my sufferings for you and do fill up the rest of the afflictions c. that is forasmuch as I fill up or because I do fill up what remaineth of the afflictions of CHRIST as some of the best and most learned interpreters have well observed The first of these two reasons which induced the Apostle to receive the sufferings of the Gospel with joy is taken as you see from hence even that by undergoing them he did fill up the rest of the afflictions of CHRIST in his flesh First it is clear that by the afflictions of CHRIST he doth not mean the troubles which the LORD JESUS himself did suffer in His own person during the days of His flesh whereof His death on the Cross was the last and the chief the end and crowning of them all For neither S. Paul nor any of the writers of the New Testament doth ever use the term affliction to express those sufferings of our LORD They are alwaies termed either His passion and sufferings or His tentations as in the Epistle to the Hebrews Hebr. 2.9 1 Pet. 1.11 JESVS was made a little lower than the Angels through the passion of His death And in S. Peter The Spirit declared the sufferings that should afterward come upon CHRIST and so elsewhere Secondly the afflictions of CHRIST of which the Apostle speaks in this place were not finished there remained still some part of them to be filled up whereas the LORDS's personal sufferings were perfectly compleated on the Cross so as in this behalf there remained nothing more for Him to suffer according to what Himself testified when he cryed with a loud voice before he gave up the ghost It is finished and according to what the Apostle teacheth Rom 6.9.10 Heb. 9.28 in divers places namely that CHRIST dyed for sin once that henceforth He dyeth no more but liveth unto GOD and that He was once offered to take away the sins of many Those of Rome do confess it and even complain that they should be charged with having other thoughts in the matter they acknowledge it would be gross blasphemy to say that the sufferings of the LORD JESUS by which He expiated our sins on the Cross do want any thing that should be supplied either by S. Paul or any other man What then are these afflictions of CHRIST which are spoken of here Dear Brethren they are those that the Apostle suffered for the name of the LORD and in His communion and by reason of the ministry wherewith He had honoured him For it is the stile of these divine men to give this title to all that the faithful suffer 2 Cor. 1.5 for this holy and glorious cause As the sufferings of CHRIST abound in us saith the Apostle so by CHRIST doth our consolation abound Where you clearly see is signified by the sufferings of CHRIST not that which the LORD suffered in His own person but that which the Apostle suffered for Him Phil. 3 10. And elsewhere again when he saith that he desired to be found in CHRIST to the end he might know the fellowship of his sufferings that is those sufferings by which all His faithful ones are consecrated after His example The same 2 Tim. 1.8 2 Cor. 15. he elsewhere calleth the afflictions of the Gospel and in the same manner the dying of the LORD JESUS which he saith he beareth about in his body just as he saith here that he filleth up the afflictions of CHRIST in his flesh And in my judgement it is the same that he meaneth at the end of the Epistle to the Galatians where he glorieth of bearing in his body the brandings of the LORD JESUS Gal. 6.17 because afflictions are as it were the mark that JESUS CHRIST imprinteth in the flesh of His servants the seal and badge of His house So in the Epistle to the Hebrews he termeth the low and disgraceful condition the afflictions and incommodities of the people of GOD the reproach of CHRIST Heb. 11.26 saying that Moses esteemed the reproach of CHRIST greater riches than the treasures of Egypt If you now ask me the reason of this kind of speech it is not difficult to be found For first Since it is for the name of the LORD for His cause and in his suit that the faithful are afflicted suffering according to S. Peters advice not as murtherers 1 Pet. 4.15.16 or thieves or evil-doers or busy in other mens matters but as Christians all the wounds that they receive upon this account are justly called the sufferings of CHRIST Since He is the cause and the true occasion of them it is reason to attribute them to Him and to say that they are His. Secondly There is so strict an union between the LORD and all His true members that they with Him make up but one body as the Apostle will presently tell us And by vertue of this conjunction we have part both in His glory and in some sort in His very Name as the Apostle intimateth when he compareth this mystical body to a natural body 1 Cor. 12.12 and saith that As the body is one and hath many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body so likewise is CHRIST Under the Name of CHRIST there S. Paul compriseth not only the person of the LORD JESUS but with Him the whole multitude of His faithful ones And considering them as united together He gives the Name CHRIST to this whole body which is composed of the LORD as the head and of the faithful as members Whereby it appears that all that the faithful do suffer each for his share doth make up part of the afflictions of CHRIST As you know we call those hurts ours which we receive in any one of
dying of CHRIST in His body and His brandings in His flesh Whence appears to note it by the way how absurd the belief of Purgatory is which makes the faithful to suffer not in the flesh but in the Spirit and extendeth their afflictions and pains beyon the days of their flesh in which nevertheless the Apostle teacheth us that their sufferings are compleated Thus you see what the sense of his words is and how much reason he had to rejoyce in his sufferings First because they were the afflictions of JESUS CHRIST the Prince of life and the author of our salvation Secondly Because they were dispensed by the order and the will of GOD. Thirdly because they made up the last part of the Apostles task being the going on and the remainder of the conflicts which he had to sustain And lastly because they contained an illustrious evidence of his gratitude towards the LORD and rendered him conform to His holy image in that as JESUS had suffered for his salvation he also suffered in his order for the glory of his gracious Master But he addeth yet another reason that sweetned likewise the bitterness of his sufferings to him and made him to find joy amid the horror of them It is that he suffered them for the body of the LORD which is His Church He had already said that he suffered for the Colossians as we have explained it Now he extendeth the fruit of his afflictions further saying that they are of use to the whole Church And to shew us how much weight this consideration should have to make his sufferings pleasant to him he gives the Church the highest and the most glorious appellation that can be attributed to any creatures calling it the body of CHRIST For what more illustrious and more precious subject can we suffer for than the body of the Son of GOD the King of ages the Father of eternity We have already treated of it at another time upon the eighteenth verse of this Chapter and shewed how and in what sense the Church is the body of CHRIST neither will we repeat ought of it for the present But his affirming that he fills up these afflictions for the Church is true and appeareth so to be in two respects First inasmuch as the Church was the occasion and indeed the cause of his sufferings For it was the service he did it in preaching the Gospel in instructing and comforting it in founding it and setling it in the faith that had provoked the Jews against him and involved him in the afflictions which did beset him As if a Princes servant zealous for his Masters glory and for the weal of his affairs should therethrough fall into some disaster he might say it was for him and his Estate that he shed his blood and lay a prisoner in his enemies hands Secondly S. Pauls afflictions were for the Church because he suffered them for the edification and consolation of the Church This was the scope of his patience and the design of His constancy It 's to the Church that all the fruit of these fair and illustrious examples of the Apostles vertue did redound He himself explains it to be thus elsewhere If we be afflicted saith he to the faithful it is for your consolation and salvation which is effected in enduring the same afflictions which we also suffer where you see that the fruit which the faithful reaped from these afflictions consisted in this that by the vertue of his example they were confirmed in the Gospel were rejoyced and comforted and fortified for the like combats And in the Epistle to the Philippians treating of the same bond Phil. 1.12 13 14. that he speaks of in this place I would ye should know saith he that the things which have betided me have fallen out rather to the greater furtherance of the Gospel So that my bonds in CHRIST have been noted in all the Palace and in all other places And many of the brethren in the LORD waxing confident by my bonds are much more bold to speak the word without fear Lo how his sufferings were for the Church in that they encouraged the Preachers and enkindled in the hearts of the faithful people the zeal of the house of GOD and in those without an inquisitiveness about the Gospel for which he was a prisoner This great man's preaching had never sparkled as it did it had never afforded the world and the Church so much edification and consolation if it had not been accompanied with sufferings sealed with his blood and confirmed by his wonderful patience amid the continual persecutions that were raised against him The conflicts of other servants of GOD have the same effect Their blood is the seed of the Church It 's from their sufferings that it springeth up It 's by them that it groweth and gathereth strength It 's the patience of these Divine Warriours that converted the world that conquered the nations unto JESUS CHRIST and planted His cross and His Gospel every where even in the most rebellious spirits Surely since the Church received so much profit from the Apostles afflictions it 's with good reason he affirms here that he filleth up the remainder of them for it And in this sence we must understand it when he saith elsewhere 2 Tim. 1.10 that he suffereth all things for the elects sake This may suffice for the proposal of the truth which is perspicuous and simple and obvious But the Error of our adversaries compelleth us to lengthen this discourse Not that they deny the exposition which we have produced For how could they do that without renouncing the doctrine of the Gospel and the confession of Christians in all ages But granting that the Apostles afflictions were for the Church in the sense we have expounded it they add that they were so further in another sense that is to say in that by undergoing them he satisfied for the sins of other believers and by this means did contribute to the greatning and enriching of the Churches treasury of satisfactions out of which the Bishop of Rome to whom the custody of it is committed makes largess from time to time as he judgeth meet for the expiating of the sins of penitents and hence hath risen the use of indulgences which is become so common in our dayes But first what kind of proof is this To shew that the Saints have satisfied Divine justice for the sins of other believers they alledge that S. Paul writeth I fill up the rest of the afflictions of CHRIST for His Church I answer his meaning is for edifying and comforting of the Church They acknowledge what I answer and only add that the Apostles sufferings do serve also for the expiating the sins of the Church and to fill the exchequer of its pretended satisfactions In conscience is this disputing Is it not a pronouncing of dictates after their own phantasie Is not this a presupposing of their opinion and no proving it It
fullfilling the word of GOD which seemeth chiefly to have setled the Authors of this exposition it sounding harsh to them that it should signifie preaching of the Gospel they should consider that the Apostle useth it elsewhere in this very sense Rom. 15.19 when he saith that from Jerusalem and round about even to Illyricum he had fullfilled the Gospel of CHRIST where he useth the same term which he placeth here and clearly calleth that the Gospel of CHRIST which here he termeth the word of GOD. What doth he mean then by these words Truly to fullfil the Gospel is to preach it with such efficacy as that it hath reception in the hearts of men it is to justifie the vertue of it by the effect And therefore our French Bibles have judiciously rendred the word in the place now quoted by making to abound The true and natural perfection of the Gospel is that it 's the power of GOD to salvation to every one that believeth both Greek and Jew I acknowledge it is so alwaies in its self but this its vertue doth not appear nor display it self until it be planted by preaching in the hearts of men and do take root and fructifie there Till then its perfection remains hid and wrapped up in its self 'T is with it as with seed which shews not what it is but when having been received into the bosome of the earth it produceth an herb or a plant or as a sword in the sheath which doth not discover its strength and the goodness of its temper but when it is drawn and set on work Thus doth the Apostle mean when he saith that GOD gave him the dispensation of the Gentiles to fullfil or accomplish his word That is to spread and by his preaching display the vertues and perfections of His Gospel which then clearly appeared when this heavenly word which till that time had operated on the Jews alone in a manner did also in short space convert a great multitude of Gentiles And the Apostle elsewhere useth a like word in almost the same manner when he saith that the power of GOD is compleated in infirmity that is to say not that it acquireth but that therein it sheweth and displayeth its perfection Such is the end of the Apostles Ministry He was called to it to fullfil or compleat the word of GOD to set His Gospel on work to preach it for the converting of men and for the glory of its Author Whereby you see first wherein principally the charge of true Ministers of the LORD doth consist not incommanding or in appearing above their flocks much less in braving it before the world but in publishing heavenly doctrine with an holy order even to the giving of themselves no rest till it be setled in the souls of their hearers till it reign there and shew its divine perfections in the change of their conversations And secondly that the Gospel is the whole subject of their preaching so as they have not liberty to mingle with it either their own inventions or traditions of men how fair and plausible soever they may seem that they do keep themselves faithfully within these bounds remembring the end of their commission that the dispensation of GOD hath been given them to fullfil the word not of men but of GOD. Consider we now that which the Apostle addeth concerning this word of GOD that is the Gospel It is saith he the mystery which had been hid from ages and from generations but hath now been manifested to His Saints All this serves to exalt the glory of the Gospel He saith first that it is a mystery that is a secret and he giveth it the same name often other-where 1 Tim. 4.16 because it is a dectrine not exposed to the sense and reason of men but secret and hid in GOD such a doctrine as eye saw not nor ear heard neither did it ascend into the heart of man Read the books of the worlds sages You will see that by the subtility of their spirits they did discover and as we may say read divers verities in the creatures which the Creator had graven on them But you shall not find those of the Gospel there at all They were hid in the deep abyss of His eternal wisdom and counsel where no created eye can penetrate or discern ought that is in it untill Himself produce it and set it in our sight Whereby it doth appear how much they are mistaken who pretend that Evangelical truth may be found out by the contemplation of nature I grant that the Gospel doth not contradict nature yea I affirm that it perfecteth and crowneth it so as when it is once revealed to us we observe divers things in nature which have admirable correspondence with it and could not be fully cleared without this new light But it is the Son of GOD alone who brought it out of the bosome of the Father and published it By the same consideration you may also judge with what reverence we ought to receive the Gospel since it is a mysterie the secret not of an earthly King but of the Soveraign Monarch of Men and Angels The Apostle saith in the second place that this secret had been hid from all ages and generations that is from the creation of the World untill the revealing of our LORD and Saviour none of the former times none of the generations of men that lived in them having had the happiness to know it There are many truths in the Law that may be termed secrets or mysteries as for instance what it teacheth concerning the creation of the world and the manner of that Creation concerning the judgement of GOD against sin and the calling of Israel had been publick a long time having been discovered by the Ministers of GOD Became publick long ago Eph. 3.5 to the sore-passed generations The Gospel alone hath this glorious advantage to have continued hidden all that while untill the appearance of the Son of God S. Paul affirms it here He repeats it in the Epistle to the Ephesians Rom. 16.25 in almost the same terms He had signified it before in that which he wrote to the Romans saying that this mysterie had been kept secret in old time But he adds in fine that this great secret hath now been manifested that is to say in the fulness of time in the latter days when the Son of GOD appeared By the Saints of GOD he meaneth first the Apostles to whom the LORD JESUS did discover the whole truth of His Gospel by the light of His Spirit in a very peculiar and extraordinary manner and secondly all the rest of the faithful whom he caused to see the same mysteries by their Preaching accompanied with the effectual operation and light of the same Spirit Both the one and the other of them are called Saints because GOD had separated them by His call from the rest of men By which you see that there are none but the
His peace His Spirit His Holiness His consolation His life and His immortality But the Apostle doth not speak here of the riches of the glory of the Gospel in general and towards all He addeth particularly among the Gentiles Sure there is no sort of men whether Jews or Greeks but the Gospel sheweth forth riches of glory in them if they receive it Yet we must acknowledge that never-did its glory break forth with so much splendor as when it was preached to the Gentiles First that exceeding great and inexhaustible abundance of goodness and grace which the Gospel goeth fill'd up with did pour forth it self and if I may so speak overflowed all bounds in saving the Gentiles the most hopeless of all men when it raised them from this grave or rather from that abyss of misery wherein they had lain not four dayes as Lazarus in his Sepulchre but for four thousand years For this cause the holy Apostle comparing the grace of GOD in His Son 〈◊〉 15.8.9 shewed to the Jew with that shewed to the Gentile at His calling of each of them doth name the former Truth for that it was promised and the second simply and altogether Mercy Then again how very admirable was the vertue of the Gospel which effected that in a few dayes that the Law had not been able to do in so many ages The Ministers of the Law did compass Sea and Land and after all found it very hard to make one proselyte and with all their diligence for two thousand years that they toiled had not reduced so much as one Nation to the Service of GOD though they employed even sword and strength to that end when they could But the Gospel quite naked and without other weapons then its Cross brought unto GOD many a people converted from Paganism They were a sort of men that worshipped stocks and stones they lay plunged in a bruitish ignorance and in the most infamous vices there was a mixture in them of the stupidity of beasts and the wickedness of Devils Certainly to make so much as one of these a Christian to bring him out of this infernal pit 〈◊〉 and place him in the Church to make him of a slave of Satan a child of GOD was as an Ancient writing on this passage rightly says no less a miracle than if some one should suddenly change an unclean and deformed dog into a man and from the dunghil whereon he lay cause him to sit upon a royal throne It was truly therefore a great and an ineffable richness and abundance of glory for the Gospel to transform so speedily not a small number but hundreds and thousands of Pagans into so many believers And in this the Apostle secretly strikes at the false Teachers who would mix such a noble and glorious mystery with their feeble traditions as if it had not strength and vertue enough of it self to subsist without the succour of their inventions Finally he intimates in two words the ground of all this richness of glory that the Gospel hath which is saith he CHRIST in you that is to say that CHRIST whom they possessed and who dwelt in them by faith 1 Tim. 1.1 And he addeth that He is the hope of glory after the same manner that elsewhere he calleth CHRIST our hope that is He of whom we hope for highest glory and in whom we do infallibly find all the blessedness that we can either defire or expect It is not without design that he advertiseth them that JESUS CHRIST is all the fullness of the mystery of the Gospel He lays a foundation hereby for what he will more clearly tell them hereafter namely that it is in vain that the seducers would mingle the Ceremonies of Moses and the service of Angels with it All this great mystery begins and ends in JESUS CHRIST since it is no other thing 1 Tim. 4.16 as himself defineth it elsewhere than GOD manifested in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the world and received up into Glory that is JESUS CHRIST our LORD born put to death raised again glorified and set forth in the Gospel for us Such is the mystery whereof the holy Apostle hath spoken to us Judge now Beloved Brethren what grace GOD hath shewed us in communicating so rich and so admirable a secret to us Many Kings and Prophets have desired to see and hear it and not at all had the happiness Heaven and earth did sigh four thousand years after the blessing we possess But in the end only the last ages did obtain it The Jews saw the wonders of GOD but obscurely and through veils and shadows The Gentiles saw them not at all being covered with a disinal night living without GOD and without hope This divine mystery appearing at once in the end of times as a great light that shines forth sudainly from Heaven did dissipate the shadows of the one and dispel the darkness of the other changing by its vertue the whole face of the universe in a moment It hath particularly shewed the riches of its glory among us having brought our Fathers out of the horrours of Paganism which did once cover this whole Land Let us embrace therefore with all the affections of our souls this great and inestimable favour of the LORD's Let us keep it pure and uncorupted without immixing in it ought that 's alien to it It is not only sufficient for our happiness It is even rich and abundant in glory They that would stuff it out with Ceremonies and services whether of Moses's teaching or mans inventing as false Teachers heretofore did and our adversaries at this day do they understand not aright the inexhaustible opulency wherewith it overslows They obscure the resplendency of its heavenly glory by their additions they hide it and cover it again with the veil which JESUS CHRIST hath rent in sunder Let us say to such as propose them unto us We are contented with the mystery which GOD hath vouchsafed to manifest unto His Saints It sufficed for their bliss It will well suffice for ours We do not desire any other riches than those which it aboundeth with or any other glory than that which it shines withall It is enough that this JESUS CHRIST who fills it up is in us the hope of true glory There is no need to associate with Him either Moses or Angels or Saints But Faithful Brethren the securing of this mystery from the errors of superstition is not all For the conversing of it pure among us and placing it in that glory which is due to it there must be a putting far away the filth of vices and of carnal and earthly passions GOD hath not lighted up this great Sun among you that ye should continue to live ill and do the same works in such a blessed light as are done in darkness Far be it from Him He hath discovered to you the mysteries hidden
slothfulness No no Christian excuse not your selves by such allegations The affairs of your Family and of your trade are altogether innocent of your faults To say true they rather invite you to honesty and innocency than sollicite you to vice It 's nothing but the rage of your ungoverned passions that causeth this disorder It is nothing but your ambition your covetousness your pride your effeminateness and delicacy that turneth you away from Christian perfection To tend to it there is no need you should retire into a Desert or a Cloister nor that your habits or your food should be different from those of the people among whom you live There needs for this but retiring from vice and sincere renouncing the practice of it plucking up the lusts of it out of your heart changing your life and not your dwelling your carriage and not your clothes And this is it my Beloved Brethren wherein we must labour and combat The design I call you to is great and painful and no less difficult than the conquest of the world the business of S. Paul's Apostleship For there is nothing that is either more harsh to us than to renounce our passions or more difficult than for us to overcome our selves It is much more easie to wear a Cowle or an hair-cloth and blacken the body with blows yea to kill ones self than to put off the desires of the flesh Labour then earnestly and assiduously since you have undertaken so difficult a task Employ all your time in it Let no day pass without putting it on watching and praying mortifying all the members of your old man with a true penitence reading and meditating the word of GOD embracing His promises exercising your selves in the study and practice of those good and holy works which he hath recommended unto us The design is great and you are weak But the LORD JESUS in whom you have believed is allmighty and allmerciful He hath still the same force which heretofore converted the world by the hand of S. Paul If you labour in his work with such zeal as His Apostle did He will also communicate His graces unto you He will display His vertue upon you He will work powerfully in you He will bruise Satan under your feet and crucifie your flesh by the efficacy of His own He will vivifie your spirit by the light of His. He will make you to triumph over your enemies He will comfort you in the afflictions which you shall suffer for so good a cause He will guide you in all your wayes And after the labour and the combat will crown you on high in the Heavens with such glory and immortality as all the pains of the present life are no way comparable to So be it and unto Him as also to the Father and to the Holy Spirit the only true GOD blessed for ever be honour and glory to ages of ages Amen The End of the First Part. SERMONS OF Mr. John Daille UPON THE EPISTLE OF THE APOSTLE St. PAUL TO THE COLOSSIANS The Second Part Containing an Exposition of the second Chapter in sixteen SERMONS LONDON Printed for Thomas Parkhurst and are to be sold at his Shop at the Bible and three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chappel and at the Bible on London Bridge 1672. TO MONSIEUR Monsieur BIGOT LORD of LAHONVILLE Counsellour of the KING in His Counsels Intendant and Controller General of the Gabels of France SIR AMONG the advantages which the Reformation of the Church embraced by our Fathers in these latter ages hath afforded us we must without doubt ascribe the preheminence to the free use we have of the word of CHRIST which He of His abundant Grace hath recovered for us This Divine Taper lighted up from Heaven in the house of GOD to shine unto His people did remain hid a long time under a Bushel that I may express it Mat. 5.15 in the terms of the Gospel the negligence and fraud of men withholding it in this shameful-state It is now set anew on its Candlestick whence it diffuseth every way its enlivening and saving light among us and that in such abundance as we may truly say in this respect the word of CHRIST dwelleth richly in us Col. 3.6 It reigneth alone in our assemblies where its voice and not any other is continualy heard to resound the Fables and Legends of men being altogether banished thence It is read there in a familiar language which every one understands whereas if it be read elsewhere it 's in a tongue dead and barbarous and unknown to the people It is explained among us with all fidelity sincerity and diligence whereas amid the darkness of former ages it was so unworthily treated by Preachers that to consider their Sermons one would think they had designed to make it openly ridiculous I confess those persons that abide in the erroneous opinions of their Ancestors yet are somewhat ashamed of this gross and prophane licentious practice of theirs and they have reformed it after a sort Yet there remain but too many defects among them still and this one in particular that they explain in publick only some pieces and if it may be said shreads of Scripture sometimes taken from one book sometimes from another never shewing their hearers any complete body For it cannot be denied but that this manner of handling the word of GOD doth deprive the faithful of much edification it being evident that the view and the considering of an entire book giveth us a great deal more of knowledge in it and admiration at it than the view of any part of it alone and taken off from the whole can do This fault is so much the less pardonable in our adversaries for that besides reason it crosseth also the custom and authority of those antient Doctors of the first ages of Christianity whose true sons and legitimate successors these Gentlemen boast they are For it was frequent at that time for Pastors to expound in the Church whole books of Scripture throughout by Sermons continued on upon the chain of the holy Text from the beginning of a volume to the very end that remainder which we have of the writings of those days doth clearly evince so much There are extant still the Sermons of S. John Chrysostom upon Genesis upon the Gospels of S. Mathew and S. John upon the Acts of the Apostles and upon all the fourteen Epistles of S. Paul which were delivered by this great man part of them in the Church of Antioch and part in the Church of Constantinople the greatest and most populous Churches of all the East And among the Latines we have the Tractates of S. Augustin upon the whole Book of Psalms and upon the Gospel of S. John and upon His first Epistle which were in like manner made and delivered in the Assemblies of his people An evident sign that about the beginning of the fifth Century when these two excellent and famous personages did flourish
both of the desire he had to see them persevere still in so good a course and of the advice he gave them not to suffer themselves to be beguiled by the perswasive words of seducers as likewise of the adding that preservative of meditating incessantly upon the treasures of wisdom which are in JESUS for the saving themselves from this mortal danger It 's now our concernment to make a good improvement of so excellent a lesson We are as much environ'd or more than the Colossians sometimes were with people that endeavour to deceive us with words of perswasion that daily make all kind of attempts upon our faith and do not forget the sophisms of subtilty or the charms of eloquence presenting error to us farded with divers specious colours For the securing of our minds from their illusions let us tell them as the Apostle teacheth us That all the Treasures of wisdom are hid in that JESUS CHRIST whom we have embraced that He sufficeth to make us wise to salvation and that we need to know none but Him to obtain happiness If with fair and artificial words they represent to us the necessity of an expiatory Sacrifice for the recommending that of their own Altars or the utility of Satisfactions to make us receive theirs or the horror of fin which hath no entrance into the Kingdom of GOD to perswade us upon their Purgatory or the need we have of an Intercessor to oblige us to have recourse to the mediation of Angels and of departed Saints or of an Head to set up their Pope Let us answer them That we have all this most fully in JESUS CHRIST that His Cross is our Sacrifice His Sufferings our Satisfactions His Blood our Purgation That while we possess Him we shall need neither an Intercessor to open the Throne of the Grace of GOD to us and render both our persons and our prayers acceptable to Him nor an Head to govern and conserve us Let us account all that would turn us aside from Him or place any part of its Treasure elsewhere than in Him to be a seduction and an illusion And as good Physicians do not only preserve from poysons but also draw profit from them by making them Remedies so let us not content our selves to keep the venom of Seducements from hurting us let us manage them in such sort as that they may serve us Let the ardency they have for Error enflame our zeal for the Truth Let their pains-taking and industry sharpen our diligence and care Let us employ that acuteness and eloquence to the defence of the Gospel which they prophane in the service of an Imposture Let us have no less affection for the Cause of GOD than they have for the matters of flesh and blood And instead of the extravagancy of some who love ignorance and rudeness because Error doth abuse Knowledg and Eloquence let us on the contrary thence take occasion to labour in adorning and embellishing of Truth that even in this respect Falshood may have no advantage above it But if the examples of enemies should be of use to us much more ought the examples of Brethren be so which wholly and solely tend to our edification Let us make our profit of that of the Colossians whose faith and order the Apostle praiseth that we might imitate it Let us put our Church into such an estate as may give joy to the LORD to His Angels and to His Ministers I may not deny but that your saith and order may be in some degree praised without flattery since by the Grace of CHRIST my Brethren you persevere in His fear and assiduously rank your selves under His Ensigns no tentation having been able hitherto to make you desert these holy Assemblies But you are not ignorant that together with this well-doing there are many miscarriages among us that there pass divers things in our Congregations smally comporting with the dignity of the House of GOD and that the hardness of some doth stiffen it self against Discipline the only Bond of Order and if our Faith be constant against Error it is too too yeilding unto Vice Dear Brethren I had rather leave the examination of it to your own Consciences than here publish our sin and shame and will content my self with telling you 1 Cor. 6.10 that the Apostle banisheth out of Heaven the vicious as well as the idolatrous GOD who hath granted us to persevere in the profession of His Truth be pleased powerfully to amend by the virtue of His Gospel the defects which His gentleness hath hitherto born with in us and sanctifie us so efficaciously that after we have glorified Him on Earth by the good order of our conversation and the fruirs of a firm and unmoved Faith we may one day receive in the Heavens from His merciful hand the Reward and Crown of blissful immortality in His Son JESUS CHRIST who in the Unity of the Father and of the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth the only GOD blessed for ever Amen THE NINETEENTH SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER VI VII VI. Therefore as you have received the Lord JESVS CHRIST so walk in Him VII Being rooted and built up in Him and established in the Faith as you have been taught abounding therein with thanksgiving FOrasmuch as man naturally loveth novelty and variety it cometh to pass that he disgusteth the best and most wholsom things when he is held any long time to the usage of them What food was there ever in the world better more savoury more nourishing and more miraculous than that Manna wherewith GOD fed the Israelites in the Wilderness pouring it down daily from Heaven upon them by the Ministry of his Angels whence it is called the Bread of Heaven and the Bread of the Mighty that is of the Angels Nevertheless this wretched people were soon discontented at it disdaining that precious gift of GOD Numb 11.6 and sottishly regretting the fruits and fish of Egypt Our soul said they is dried up there 's nothing here our eyes see nought but Manna Dear Brethren this History is a fit emblem of what hath betided men in reference to JESUS CHRIST and His Gospel the true Bread of Heaven sent down from GOD into the Wilderness of this World for the eternal nutriment of Mankind of which that ancient Manna as you know was the figure according to what Himself teacheth us in the sixth of S. John For our nature is no less delicate nor hath an appetite less extravagant in respect of the Doctrines that are necessary to seed our Souls than it hath in respect of the Meat that is ordained for the refection of our Bodies The truth of the LORD JESUS is embraced at the first with hungring and heat every one admiring the wonderfulness of this heavenly food which wholly exceedeth the productions of the earth But because though it be throughout holy and salutiferous yet it is simple and uniform the vanity of man in desiring change and variety
LORD And it must be confess'd that this figure is marvellously elegant and proper for this matter For even as the body comprehendeth in its self several members which have each of them their particular function and exercise in like manner this mass of corruption which we bear about in our nature is composed of many different Vices which have each of them their peculiar motion and operation Ambition tendeth one way Avarice and Intemperance another Envy defileth us in one manner Cruelty in another and each of these pests hath its own sentiment and ends Their motions are sometimes even contrary and do thwart one another as unclean spirits that are not at an agreement However at the bottom all these evils come from one and the same source and live in one and the same mass as all the members do make up but one and the same body Hence it is that the Apostle sometimes considering sins under this notion calleth them our members or the members of our flesh Col. 3.5 as when he commands us to mortifie our members which are upon the earth to wit fornication uncleanness inordinate affection and other like Vices Moreover as this body in which we live doth cover us all about so that mass of Vices wherewith our nature is infected doth encompass and on wrap us on all sides there being no part or faculty in us but is as it were invested and besieged with it Such is the corruption that we derive from the first Adam and by reason thereof the Apostle sometimes also calleth it the old man He saith therefore that the circumcision which we have in JESUS CHRIST is the putting off of this body of the sins of the flesh when the faithful person by the virtue of the Word and Spirit of the LORD JESUS doth cut off all the vices of the flesh which are the members thereof and strips himself of this old habit of sin and death wherewith the first Adam clothed us This is that which in the same sense he elsewhere calleth a putting off the old man as to former conversation Eph. 4.22 Col. 3.8 Gal. 5.24 which is corrupted by deceitful lusts And in this present Epistle a putting off of anger malignity and evil speaking and other such sins and again in another place a crucifying of the flesh with its affections and lusts All this amounts to the same sense and signifieth the mortifying of the flesh and the cutting off of its Vices that there may be an abstaining from all the sins which they are wont to produce in the lives of men of the world The Apostle adds in the end that this is the circumcision of CHRIST First because our LORD and Saviour hath expresly instituted it in his Gospel commanding us to be born again to deny our selves to change our deportments to put on a simplicity and humility like that of little children and to break all the ties we have with the flesh and the world if we will follow him and have part in his Kingdom This is the first and most important instruction in his Discipline Secondly It is the circumcision of CHRIST because it 's he alone who is the Author of it and doth effect it in us neither is there ought but his Gospel alone that can unclothe man of this body of the sins of the flesh For it is not possible but that a soul on whom the Doctrine of JESUS CHRIST hath been imprinted by the power of the Holy Ghost should renounce the world and the flesh Philosophy was so far from curing this malady that it did not so much as know it exâ—ctly The Law discovered it indeed and made man to feel the tyrannous strength of this rebellious body of the flesh wherewith he is naturally clothed and surrounded But it was unable to subdue and mortifie it as the Apostle teacheth us at large in the seventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans There is none but JESUS CHRIST who by the efficacy of his heavenly truths and the divine examples of his holiness thrust down into our hearts by the hand of his Spirit can circumcise us in this manner unfolding and dis-investing us by little and little of these wretched bonds and weakning and extinguishing the life of the flesh in us Compare now this Circumcision of our Saviour's with that of Moses and you will without difficulty perceive that it infinitely surpasseth it in dignity and excellency That of Moses wounded the body this of CHRIST enliveneth the soul The one par'd away a little skin the other mortifies the whole body of the flesh The one was in its self but a typical ceremony the other is a mystical verity The one mark'd the flesh the other maketh better and ennobleth the heart Without the one a man could have no part in the communion of the carnal Jews and by the other we enter into the alliance of the spiritual Jews whole praise is of GOD and not of men Whereby you may judg how extravagant the conceit of those seducers was whom the Apostle doth in this place oppose who notwithstanding that excellent and divine circumcision which Christians have receiv'd in their Saviour's School would yet bring them under that of Moses which was poor and weak and so many ways defective as if Christians could not upon a far better ground than the Jews glory that they truly are GOD's circumcised Now for a right comprehending of the force of the Apostle's reasoning it must be remembred that circumcision as well as the other ceremonies of the Mosaick Law was a figure which represented the abscission of the vices and lusts of the flesh as the Prophets themselves do clearly enough shew when they promise the ancient people that GOD will circumcise their heart and the heart of their seed Deut. 30.6 Jer. 4.4 that they may love him and live and command them to circumcise themselves unto the LORD and to take away the fore-skin of their hearts an evident sign that this external action did refer to the internal mortification and sanctification of the soul Since then the figure is unprofitable when the truth is attained and models do serve only till the things themselves be formed and perfected the use of them when this is done being no longer necessary you plainâ—y see that from the Apostle's saying here that in JESUS CHRIST we have this putting off or cutting off of the sins of the flesh that is the truth whereof circumcision was the figure and model it evidently follows that it is no longer necessary for us and that a wilful retaining of it still is an accusing of JESUS CHRIST of having not fulfilled in his Discipline the thing represented by this ancient type Iâ—'s true that even in the time of the Old Testament the faithful had some part of the sanctification signifi'd by their circumcision but what they had was weak and in small measure because the true causes on which it dependeth being all comprised in the Mysteries of
Burial is nothing else but a consequent of death It 's the sad and dismal state to which it reduceth men ever since they became guilty that is to say it makes up a part of the punishment of sin As indeed it 's a hideous thing and full of horror to see so noble and excellent a Creature in whom the Image of GOD did shine forth and who had been formed for immortal glory to be brought down to the grave under the power of Worms and putrefaction JESUS CHRIST therefore having undergone this ignominious Infirmity for us and for our Salvation that he might leave none of our penalties unsatisfied for it 's evident that when he was buried we were buried in him and with him since it was properly for us that he did descend into the Sepulcher He bore us upon the Cross He bore us in the grave We all were in him forasmuch as he in all this work acted but for us We did and suffered these things since we are the cause that he did and suffered them We were buried in him forasmuch as His being buried hath discharged this part of our punishment and so changed the nature of our graves that instead of being prisons and places of execution they are now so many beds and dormitories wherein our bodies do repose until the resurrection Thus his burial hath freed ours from the curse which is naturally upon it and this benefit makes up a part of that justification which he hath merited for us it comprehending an exemption from all the penalties that are due to our sins But it is not in this sense that the Apostle saith we have been buried with JESUS CHRIST For he speaks here of the first part of our sanctification which is nothing else but the mortifying of the body of sin or old man in us and its burial that is the bringing it to nought It 's therefore properly in this respect S. Paul says that we have been buried with JESUS CHRIST even in as much as by the virtue of his death and burial our old man hath been destroy'd and suffer'd a death and burial semblable and analogical to JESUS CHRIST's For as his flesh after it was depriv'd of life was laid in a grave in like manner the old man of true believers having been stain is interred and brought to nought And as the LORD JESUS left in the Sepulcher his Funeral linnen clothes together with all the infirmity and mortality he had and came forth vested with a nature and a life fully refined from all that weakness of the first Adam which appeared in him during the days of his flesh even so the faithful do put off for ever that body of sin wherewith their first Parent had enwrapped them and leave it in their mystical Sepulcher to be resum'd no more but that they may henceforth lead a life free and exempt from all its filthiness and turpitude Lastly As the burial of our Saviour was properly but a progression and continuation of his death so likewise that of our old man is but a prosecuting of his destruction 't is the estate this puts him in and under it he abides for ever without rising any more S. Paul does else where clearly shew us that it is thus we must understand his words as when he saith in the sixth to the Romans that we are buried with CHRIST by baptism into his death Rom. 6.4 5. that as he was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father so we should likewise walk in newness of life and immediately after he saith that we have been made one self-same plant with him by the conformity of his death and resurrection To which must be also added that it is in him and with him we have been buried in this sort for that in his death and burial the principles and causes of ours were contained His death hath destroyed our old man and his burial hath interred him it being evident that if our LORD had not suffered both the one and the other for our salvation sin would still live and reign in us For it is the love of GOD and his peace and the hope of glory the true effect of our Saviour's death and burial that gives the deaths-wound to our old man and that doth abolish and bury his whole life See then how we are buried with him not that to speak properly our bodies do really enter into the grave in Joseph of Arimathea's garden where his abode three days away with so childish a conceit but for that the virtue of his death and holy Sepulcher doth derive into us an image and a copy of his burial destroying and burying our old man by his efficacy and bringing on him a mystical death and burial conform to his own real and mystical one This now which the Apostle addeth that we are also risen again together with him must also be understood after the same manner As our death and burial with him is mystical and spiritual so is likewise our resurrection these words signifying no other thing but that he by the virtue of his resurrection doth work and produce one in us which hath resemblance and analogy with his own And this resurrection of the faithful in consequence and by the efficacy of JESUS CHRIST's is their being renewed unto an holy spiritual and Evangelical life For even as the LORD having put off on the Cross and left in the grave that earthy infirm and natural life which he had led here below during the days of his flesh did put on a new one that was glorious spiritual and immortal rising from the grave a man heavenly and living to eternity by the sole strength of a quickning spirit so likewise all his true members having quitted their old man as destroyed and abolished by the virtue of his death do put on the new which is formed in righteousness and holiness and instead of that vile and wretched life which they led aforetime in the turpitude and fifth of sin they take up another wholly new one which is quickned by the Spirit from on high upheld by his power and shineth all over with the glorious lights of his sanctity charity and purity But besides this conform â—y between the new nature which we receive in JESUS CHRIST and that same which he put on at his coming forth of the grave we are said to rise again with him because it is the virtue of his resurrection that produceth all this change in us His resurrection is the cause of ours without it we should lye dead still and in bondage to sin This will appear if you afford ever so little attention to consider it For that which formeth the new man in us and gives us the courage to renounce the world that we may live pure and holy is as every one knows the perswasion of the love of GOD and of the remission of our sins and the hope of blissful and glorious immortality Now it is the
that supposing a man be perfectly cured of vicious habits and inclinations yet would he nevertheless be faulty by reason of his fore-passed sins and consequently liable upon this account unto the curse with which and the terrors that precede it true life is so incompatible that it is not imaginable a man in such a state could ever resolve to serve GOD freely and sincerely Therefore GOD that he may throughly quicken us doth not only deliver us from the tyranny of vice and of the flesh by that Princely Spirit which he poureth into our inward parts but moreover pardoneth us all the sins whereof we are guilty and it seems in very deed if we do accurately observe the moments of his action in us that it 's there he does begin first remitting our former offences to the end that the sense of this goodness of His may cause us to love him and encline us to obey him and conform our selves with all our might unto his holy will The Apostle attributeth unto this remission two remarkable qualities One that GOD forgiveth us all our offences that is doth not impute to us any of our sins either in whole or in part but treateth us as if we had committed none at all Another is that he doth it freely and of meer grace for so doth the word giving used here in the Original properly signifie as our Translation hath well express'd by rendring He hath freely forgiven us The Scripture tells us not of any other kind of pardon For as to that which our Adversaries do assert to wit whereby the fault is remitted but the punishment exacted either in whole or in part or is bought out with the payment of our own satisfactions or the satisfactions of others it's a figment of their own Schools of which the Holy Ghost says nothing any where but represents unto us all that remission which GOD gives the faithful either at the beginning or in the progress of their regeneration as an entire pardon and purely gratuitous As for that satisfaction by which our LORD and Saviour obtained it for us it is so far from any way diminishing that it does infinitely exalt the bounty of GOD towards us since that he so loved us as that he might pardon our faults with the consent of his Justice he would have his only Son to shed his precious blood for the contenting thereof This is that we had to deliver upon this Text of the Apostle's Dear Brethren Let us hold fast what it hath taught us of the condition that all men are naturally in before GOD calleth them to his grace Let not their outward appearance deceive you nor the pleasures of their flesh nor the splendor of their pretended virtues either civil or moral All this is but a false image of life covering a carkass that 's stinking and abominable before GOD. Make account that they are dead and that if they walk it is not a true principle of life but sin the poyson of life which doth animate them and set them on working The issue will one day clear it to us all when the just judgment of GOD having stript them of that fallacious disguise which now hideth the hideousness of their nature shall shew it before Heaven and Earth and make us plainly see that they were but Sepulchers whited without and full of filth and infection within and cast them thereupon into that wretched and eternal death which is prepared for them with the Devil and his Angels Bless we GOD who hath deliver'd us from this perdition by his great mercy and hate we sin and the corruption of the flesh which had involv'd us in it Look we on them as pests and poysons that destroy our life and reckon we that we have liv'd no more time than what hath been exempted from our serving of them You deceive your self Worldling who count the days of your unclean pleasures or your vain honours the best part of your life To say plainly it was the time of your being dead and not of your being alive After so many years as you have tumbled up and down the earth you have not yet liv'd a moment You have all along been in a state of death And they that write upon your Tombs that you liv'd so many years and died such a day do grosly err You did not live when you offended GOD and your Neighbour or lost your time in the filth of your infamous delights And on the day that you shall quit the earth you will not cease to live for to say true you never liv'd but from one kind of death you will pass into another from the death of sin to a death of torment Christians if you love life and hate horror at death renounce sin and mortifie your flesh You cannot live except it dye Put in exercise that noble life which the LORD hath given you in his Son Act according to the Principles which he hath put into you by his Spirit and lay forth continually in good and holy works the Graces wherewith he hath vested you Faithfully love and serve him Let your minds meditate on nothing beside him your hearts desire none but him your tongues speak only of him Let the contemplation of the wonders of his love and the hopes of his glory be the whole food of your souls Respect those men in whom you see his Image shine Affect them and serve them for his sake looking upon their lives their estates their honour their bodies and souls as sacred and inviolable things Endeavour to enrich them by communicating of your prosperities unto them Offend no man Do good to all Let your charity and your innocence be conspicuous in the sight of GOD and Man Faithful Brethren This is that life truly worthy to be called life which GOD doth reward for the present with a joy and contentment of Conscience that 's a thousand times more sweet and savoury than any of the vain delights of the world and which he will crown one day with that glorious Immortality he hath promised It 's for this that he hath vouchsafed to forgive us freely all our offences all those so many horrible Crimes which had merited Hell-fire and is still ready to pardon all the sins we have committed since This so great and admirable loving-kindness of his tendeth only to withdraw us from sin and oblige us to love and revere so good a GOD. It 's for the self-same end that he hath raised up his Son from the dead and enliven'd us with him giving us faith hope and charity the principles of a new life even that henceforth renouncing sin and the flesh and turning our hearts towards Heaven where our treasure and our glory is we might live soberly righteously and godly in the present world looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great GOD and Saviour JESUS CHRIST Amen The Twenty-fifth SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER XIV Ver. xiv Having effaced the obligation
fetter'd fast for ever You shall see not Arrows broken and Cuirasses batter'd and Arms cut in pieces but Sin abolish'd and Death destroy'd You shall see the spoils not of an Army or a Countrey but of the Lords of the world and of the Governours of the darkness of this Age. Lastly You shall behold in it not the image of some petty Fortress taken by assault or composition or of some River forced or some Province subdued but Hell finally beaten Heaven gained and an Eternal World brought under the power of our victorious LORD Let us apply our selves to the fruition of this magnificent spectacle and afford it all the sense and attention that we have To this end consider we First What these Principalities and Powers are which JESUS CHRIST hath spoiled And then see in the second place how he made a shew of them and triumph'd over them on the Cross These are the two Heads we will treat upon if the LORD please in this action The Apostle ordinarily makes use of the words Principalities Powers Dominions Thrones Col. 1.16 Rom. 8.37 Eph. 1.21 and Virtues to signifie the Angels as for instance in the first Chapter of this Epistle in the eighth of the Epistle to the Romans and in the first of that he wrote to the Ephesians He gives those spiritual beeings these names both because of the strength and power they are endowed with which mightily surpasseth the virtue of material and elementary things and also by reason of the divers orders into which GOD hath distinguish'd them according to the difference of their ministrations placing some of the Angels as it were Chiefs in a superiority to others And though the sin of Devils hath corrupted the perfections of their nature yet it doth appear by divers places of Scripture that it hath not quite destroyed this Order among them Satan being set forth to us as the Head of this black band and as having other evil Angels under him so as they may in this respect be still reâ—med Principalities and Powers Nevertheless there is another reason which the Apostle had his eye principally upon in giving them these names as he himself intimateth in the sixth Chapter to the Ephesians We wrestle not saith he against flesh and blood Eph. 6.12 but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness in high-places Here you plainly see he calleth them Principalities and Powers by reason of that Imperiality they exercise in this world under its present state of subjection unto sin and vanity Not that such a superiority doth of right belong unto them for having rebelled against their Creator they have lost all true and lawful dignity But the sin of man having â—uslav'd him to those evil spirits hath withall made these elements subject to them whereof he was the true and natural Lord. And GOD hath permitted it so to be for the executing of his justice against sin For since that man shook off the yoke of GOD having wretchedly preferr'd the pernicious counsel of his Eneâ—y before the just commandment of his Master it is but reason he should be subject to him to whom he did betray his own liberty Such then is the order or rather the confusion of the world since the fall to wit that the Devil exerciseth an insupportable â—yranny in it governing it at his pleasure as if he were Lord of it For First He worketh upon all the ungodly with wonderful force swaying their souls unto brutal passions setting on fire their lusts and by that thick smoak which he raiseth from their hearts blinding their minds and depriving them of all the light that 's necessary for distinguishing of truth and falshood Eph 2.2 of good and evil as the Apostle doth elsewhere inform us saying that this unclean spirit doth work effectually in the children of disobedience and in another place 2 Tim. 2.26 he telleth us that he hath the wicked in his snares and makes them do his will Not that he compelleth them to evil by co-active force and how much soever they dislike it but their nature being corrupted as it is he never tempteth them without effect their souls voluntarily surrendring themselves to his pernicious perswasions Moreover he disposeth of material things turning and changing them at his pleasure raising tempests in the air seditions and warrs among men putting in commotion all that murtherous violence that makes havock of mankind and presiding over all the instruments of the creatures damage and death Heb. 2.14 By reason whereof the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews calleth Satan Him who hath the power of death And although he executeth none of his bad purposes without the permission of GOD as the Scripture clearly shews us in the History of Job where you see he toucheth neither the goods nor the children nor the person of that holy man until leave had of this Supream Majesty nevertheless because he worketh commonly in the world the greater part whereof is depraved and rebellious against GOD he seems Master of it and himself doth glory in it as when he said to our Saviour in temptation after he had shewed him all the Kingdoms of the Earth Luke 4.6 All the power and glory of these things will I give thee for to me it is delivered and I give it to whom I will And indeed for these reasons doth our Saviour stile the Devil John 12.31 and 14.30 2 Cor. 4.4 the Prince of this world as when he says Now the Prince of this world shall be cast out and so elsewhere and S. Paul calls him in the same sense the GOD of this world Represent unto your selves the world as it was under the darkness of its old Heathenism when GOD left all Nations to walk in their own ways In it the Devil absolutely domineered All those poor multitudes held he under his tyranny He had put out the eyes of their minds and in this blindness made them commit all kind of vileness and abominations He inspired into them hatred of the true GOD and of his Service and so effectually beguiled them by his fallacious illusions that he caused them to adore himself under the forms of divers Idols These same spirits are they that the Apostle intends here by those Principalities and Powers he speaks of For though the Scripture doth particularly mark out one of them whom it calleth Satan as the Head of this abominable Monarchy yet it rangeth under him a vast multitude of Spirits who all travelling upon the same design and setting on work in it all the might and industry they have do bear a part in his accursed Empire And there is great probability too that they are divided into certain bands each of which are drawn up under their particular Chiefs and do all of them depend upon Satan as their General For which reason it is that the Apostle calls them in the plural number Principalities
resurrection with our Saviour He had touched it already in the twelfth verse of the precedent Chapter and 't is from thence he resumes it and reminds us of it here saying If then ye be risen again with CHRIST that is to say since you are risen again with the LORD as I have said and shewed a-fore For the particle if is used here as often else-where by way of illation and concluding not in way of doubting and imports as much as if the Apostle had said since that or seeing that For the rest you plainly see that the Resurrection he speaks of is not that of our bodies which shall not be till the last day but another mystical and spiritual one already accomplished in us by the virtue of our LORD'S resurrection and the efficacy of His Spirit Eph. 2.5.6 He spake of it a-fore at the place we noted and in the Epistle to the Ephesians where he saith that GOD hath quickened us together with CHRIST and raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Him He explains us the mysterie of it else-where in these words Rom. 6. We are saith he buried with Him by Baptisme into His death that as CHRIST is raised from the dead by the glory of the Father so we in like manner should walk in newness of life Every resurrection presupposeth a death preceding For to rise again is nothing else but for one to be restored to life who before was dead Now the estate that men are in under the dominion of sin the Scripture calleth Death because therein they have no sense nor motion in respect of piety and sanctity no more than the dead that rest in the grave have any for the actions of this life Eph. 2.1 Ye were dead in your sins and offences saith the Apostle to the Ephesians speaking of the time of their ignorance Whence is that which our Saviour saith in the Gospel Let the dead bury their dead and which St. Paul sayes 1 Tim. 5.6 the widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth When therefore by the efficacy of the vocation of the Spirit and Gospel of the LORD a man comes to pass out of this miserable condition into the estate of grace receiving the light of Faith into his understanding and Charity and Sanctification into his heart the Scripture to express this wonderful change saith that he is risen again This is precisely the resurrection that St. Paul intendeth in this place He saith that we are risen again with CHRIST First because this blessed change that 's brought to pass in us by His grace is like that change which betided Him when from the grave where He had lain for the space of three daies He was raised unto life by virtue from on high For as He then received the faculties of moving and sensation of which He was deprived in the Sepulchre so we in our regeneration do receive a spirit and a principle of life which we had not before Again as the LORD was restored unto life by the glory of the Father as the Apostle speaks that is by virtue of the exceeding great and glorious power of GOD in like manner are we renew'd and put into the state of grace by the efficacy of the might of GOD and not by the arm of man or the operation of flesh and blood In fine as the LORD upon His rising again did recover not simply that life which He laid down in His dying but another much more excellent and glorious a spiritual a coelestial and an immortal life in like manner we resume in our regeneration not the life of the first Adam before sin from which we were fallen and which how excellent so-ever was nevertheless animal and mortal that is capable of being lost as appeared by the issue but another much more exquisite and perfect a life eternal immutable and like that the blessed Angels live Thus you see the Resurrection of the LORD CHRIST is the idea and pattern of ours But I add in the second place that we are said to be risen again with CHRIST because it is in Him and from Him that we have this grace it being evident that Faith which is the first faculty of the new life doth ingraff and incorporate us into JESUS CHRIST and as the vine-branch doth not live but in its stock so man cannot live that divine life but in his Saviour In fine we are risen again with CHRIST because His resurrection is the cause of ours in such sort as if He had not risen from the dead we should have remained lying in the darkness of our spiritual death CHRIST coming forth out of His grave hath opened and enlightened ours and hath administred out of His own store all things necessary to deliver us out of the miserable estate wherein we were and to put us in possession of the life of Heaven His resurrection hath founded our Faith shewing us clearly that He is the Son of GOD and that His Gospel is true His resurrection hath assured our souls giving us full proof that His death did fully satisfie and content the judge of the World It hath strengthened our hopes making us to see by example of our Head that death the dreadfullest of our enemies cannot impede our happiness Hereupon it hath kindled love of GOD and desire of so great glory in our hearts and finally produced in them the principles the habitudes and dispositions of the new life which are necessary for our attaining unto blissful immortality Since therefore JESUS CHRIST in rising again did thereby raise up our life which had been ingulfed in hell and the curse and brought to light the causes of Faith Hope and Charity the principal faculties of that new life we now have it 's evident that we are risen again in Him and with Him From whence that which the Apostle infers upon it doth no less clearly follow to wit that we ought to mind henceforth the things which are on high and seek them with all our affection For the life unto which we are raised up with our LORD is heavenly and not earthly divine and not natural eternal and not corruptible Since therefore every creature employeth all the sense and affection it hath about things suitable to its life who sees not that the faithful are obliged by the honour they have to be risen again with the LORD neither to breath after nor embrace other things but those that are on high in which their new life doth properly consist And such is the example He hath given us For being risen he abode but a very little time here below only so long as the work of our salvation did require and forthwith ascended into Heaven to draw up our thoughts and affections thither untill our bodies also follow one day being raised up thither as His was unto highest glory And this is the second consideration that the Apostle here lays before us to perswade
man is worthy of our pity The devil that set him on work does properly deserve our hate It 's with this murtherer that we should be angry There it is that passion would be just But if by all these remedies we cannot prevent our being sometimes incensed against our neighbours at least let us stop when our perturbation boileth up Eph. 4.26 Let us not add sin to our emotion neither let the Sun as the Apostle speaks go down upon our wrath but hold we for certain that the shortest angers are the best Now if we can once devest our selves of this wretched passion we shall by the same means eradicate together with it that other of detraction or evil speaking which St. Paul here annexeth in the sequel For wrath is commonly the root from which the same doth spring that at least which the Apostle means who useth a word that signifies a man's reviling of his neighbour a thing scarce ever done but in choler But all evil-speaking whatever origine it hath is an accursed and a deadly plant the production and workmanship of the devil the father of evil-speakers For his trade you know is to calumniate to detract and say evil They that do the same are his disciples and it is from his suggestion and infusion they derive the poison of their tongue And as they have now part in his exercise so shall they have one day in his torments according to that which the Apostle teacheth us elsewhere namely that revilers shall not inherit the kingdom of GOD. Indeed since Heaven is the inheritance of charity 1 Cor. 6.10 and sanctity what portion in it can detraction pretend to which is so contrary to those two Vertues and gives them at once three deadly wounds goring and outraging by the same blow both the person of whom it speaketh evil and the person to whom and a man 's own It wounds the reputation of the person of whom it speaketh evil and as much as in it lies deprives him of his honour the greatest of our external goods and such as no riches can equal the value of It pollutes the ear of him that hears it and makes such a poison glide there-through into his heart as is apt to extinguish neighbourly charity and fill him with suspitions with aversion and hatred against his neighbour even to the raising sometimes of scandalous and mortal enmities and quarrels between them In fine the detractor doth not spare himself but profaneth his own tongue and abuseth it to the rending and scandalizing of his neighbour whereas it was given him by his Creator to be an instrument of benediction and edification And this seems to be properly the consideration which the Apostle here had in his eye Having cleansed our hearts from the ordures of wrath and malignity he also purifieth our mouths Eph. 5.3 4. taking out of them what is contrary to their sanctification Put away saith he wrath anger maliciousness evil speaking dishonest words out of your mouth And this is the reason why unto detraction he addeth dishonest speech because it defiles our mouths and corrupteth speech one of the most precious presents that Divine bounty hath made us and made that our mind might use it for the communicating of its good and holy conceptions unto others for their consolation and edification Whereas quite contrary he that makes unhonest discourses to them fills their ears with dung and fouls the purity of their hearts and shews the infection of his own out of the abundance of which his mouth speaks as our Saviour saith For as an ill breath doth signifie some inward indisposition and corruption so filthy and dishonest talk discovers impurity and unchastity in his soul who makes it Hence it is that the Apostle in another place expresly puts this among other parts of Christian sanctity that our discourses be pure and chast and honest Fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness let it not be once named among you saith he as becometh Saints Neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting which are not convenient And again else-where Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers Behold Beloved Brethren the divine doctrine of this great Apostle Conform we our whole life unto the same serving GOD in body and Spirit and sanctifying our hearts and mouths unto His glory and the edification of our neighbours eradicating first out of our souls all asperity and bitterness anger wrath and malignity and planting them with kindness and sweetness and patience towards all men then purging our tongues also from the poisons of detraction and from the filth of all dishonest speech consecrating them as precious vessels to the praise of GOD and the spiritual utility of men to the end there be nothing in our carriage but what is worthy of the discipline of our LORD JESUS CHRIST and that after we shall have so walked in His fear in all piety and honesty He may one day receive us into His Kingdom of glory where without holiness none shall enter Unto Him with the Father and the Holy Spirit be all honour and praise to ages of ages Amen THE THIRTY SEVENTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER VIII IX Verse VIII Put away also all these things c. Evil speaking dishonest talk out of your mouth IX Lye not one to another AMong the advantages which raise our nature above that of animals speech doth undoubtedly hold one of the first ranks being as it is the interpreter of the mind the image of thought the instrument of communication the bond of society the instruction of ignorance the consolation of grief the parent and nurse of friendship and the sweetness of life If you consider it in its self what can be imagin'd more marvellous than this faculty which doth represent by a certain number of sounds not very different from one another the infinite variety of all those things that come into our minds and bringing them out of that inaccessible and impenetrable recess where our soul conceives and forms them within its self makes them appear abroad rendring that in some sort visible which was altogether invisible and that corporeal which was purely spiritual I well know that animals do discover the passions and movings of their souls joy grief fear desire by certain cries which they utter as often as they are surprized with the same But there is nothing in this that comes near speech For the voices of animals do proceed from nature it self whereas words of speech are an effect and an institution of reason Those are confused and inarticulate these distinct and formed with excellent art Those express nothing but the passions of a sensitive faculty these do represent the conceptions of the understanding But the utility of speech is no less than the wonder Without it assemblies of men would be but so many herds of cattle and
without His death we could not have had the pardon of our sins nor the grace of the Holy Spirit nor the hope of immortality all which are things absolutely necessary to the devesting us of the old man and to the revesting us with the new Whereas now JESUS CHRIST dying on the Cross hath there pierced through and fastned up our old man and by the vertue of His sufferings created and formed in us another new man as different from the old as Heaven from the Earth and Life from Death Therefore the Apostle doth elsewhere conclude from the death of JESUS CHRIST the death of the old man in us and the life of the new 2. Cor. 5.15.17 If one died for all saith he then are all dead and He died for them that they might live henceforth in Him and no more unto themselves If any man be in CHRIST he is a new creature And in another place he saith expresly Rom. 6.6 11. that our old man was crucified with CHRIST that the body of sin might be destroyed and that we being dead with Him might live to GOD in Him Thus the death of CHRIST is at once the destruction of the old man and the production of the new the one was abolish'd by it and the other created This flesh of the mystical Lamb which GOD to day presents us hath slain our flesh and enlivened our spirit and from that Divine blood of His wherein the old man is drown'd is issu'd forth the new created in righteousness and holiness like as heretofore the Israelite was seen to come alive and glorious out of that very gulf of the Red-sea wherein the Egyptian lay sunk and overwhelm'd But oh new wonder as our LORD's flesh and blood is the principle that gives being to our new man so is it his nutriment And as in nature things are sustained by the same means that they were set up so in grace the new man is conserved and increased and strengthened by the same blood of JESUS CHRIST out of which he was formed And that heavenly meat and divine drink which you shall anon receive from the hand of GOD are not given you but for the feeding and perfecting of your new man I go yet further and durst say that this new man whom the Apostle would at this time vest you with is none other rightly considered than the same JESUS CHRIST whom we have put on at Baptism and whom we receive in the Supper propagated if I may so speak and pourtrayed in us by His own vertue who transformeth us into the likeness of His death and resurrection by reason that entring into and dwelling in us He formeth in us a man like Himself that as He did dyeth unto the flesh and with him leaveth in his sepulchre all his old life as an infirm and useless offal and being enlivened with Him and adorned with His light and endowed with an heavenly nature leads thenceforth a spiritual and glorious life Thus you see that the body of CHRIST was crucified and His blood shed and that the one and the other are given us in the Supper to devest us of the old man and vest us with the new This is the end and fruit of all that mysterie unto the participation whereof you are this day called Make account then that the best preparation you can bring unto it is a serious meditating of what the Apostle doth here inform us He exhorted the Colossians afore to mortifie the vices of their flesh and all the infamous passions of that Pagan life they had sometime led in the darkness of their ignorance as fornication covetousness anger evil speaking impurity of language and lying Now to cut up these and other like vices by the root and to comprise all the parts of sanctification in few words he commandeth us to put off the old man with his deeds c. There are others that take these words for a reason of his precedent exhortation drawn from that estate which JESUS CHRIST had put them into by Baptism as if his meaning were that they are obliged to renounce the vices he had been forbidding them since in their Baptism they did put off the old man on which these vices depend and of which they make up a part and put on the new which is contrary to them and incompatible with them Whether you understand it thus or take the text simply for a prosecution of the precedent command shewing us that for the due execution of it we must perform what is here added all amounteth to well-nigh the same sense And for the right comprehending of it we will treat if GOD permit of the three points which offer themselves in the Apostle's words first of the old man which we must put off secondly of the new which we must put on and the form it consisteth in to wit a renewing in knowledge after the image of Him who created it and in fine of that indifferency of nations and ceremonies and conditions which the Apostle affirmeth in this matter requiring nothing in reference to it but CHRIST who is the all of it and in all May it please GOD so to inlighten our understandings for the right discerning of this saving truth and touch our hearts to love and practise it effectually sanctifying us by the vertue of His word and precious Sacrament that we may all go out hence new men conformed in purity and charity and every vertue to that LORD JESUS in whose name and communion we by His grace do glory The Scripture sets before us the person of Adam and of JESUS CHRIST as two different stocks of mankind or as it were two opposite heads or principles of this nature which we call humane They have this in common that both the one and the other hath a great number of children which are issued from them and do depend upon them and that each of them doth communicate to his own his being his form his life and his condition imprinting his image on them which every of them beareth according to the quality of his extraction They differ or to say better are opposite in that the one is earthy the other heavenly the one hath a carnal vicious infirm nature full of ignorance and error and subject to death and the curse The other hath a spiritual holy nature full of light and wisdom acceptable unto GOD immortal and inheriting eternity The one propagateth in his children sin and death The other communicates to his righteousness sanctity and life The one transmits his nature by a carnal generation the other imparteth his to his descendents by a spiritual generation and such an one as hath nothing in common with flesh and blood The nature of the one is deprav'd by the empoisoned breath of the old Serpent which creepeth on the ground and liveth on the dust thereof That of the other hath been formed and conserved by the Eternal and coelestial Spirit It 's for these reasons that
notable difference between the heavenly food which we receive in this Sacrament and the earthly meat we daily take for whereas the latter is for the nourishing of our bodies chang'd into their nature the former on the contrary for the enlivening of our souls transform them into its own Thus since we have participated this Morning of this precious Sacrament we cannot better employ the present hour than in meditating these words of the Apostle which contain and represent one of its principal effects Consider them therefore my Brethren attentively And that we may discern whether or no we have truly communicated of the bread of Heaven let us examine whether it hath produced and formed in our hearts that humility and kindness and all those other vertues which the Apostle enjoyns us in this place and reckon we that without this neither the LORD's favour in inviting us unto his Table nor the heavenly food there presented us will benefit us at all and that remaining far from contributing to our salvation it will aggravate our condemnation according to the Apostles saying in another place That whoever cateth of the bread of the LORD and drinketh of his cup unworthily eateth and drinketh his own judgment S. Paul if you remember having in general exhorted the Colossians to mortifie the members of the old Man did particularly nominate and specifie to them some of his principal Vices as covetousness fornication malignity wrath and such others expresly injoyning them to put them away But because it is not enough to forbear evil there must also be a doing good and it sufficeth not that we abstain from vice if we do not exercise the actions of vertue This great Apostle having forbidden the lusts and fins of the old Man commands us first in general to put on the New as you heard a week since and then in the progress of his speech he pointeth at some of the principal parts of this new Man by name It is precisely at the Verses we have read that he begins this discourse Put on then saith he as elected of GOD Saints and Beloved bowels of mercy c. This exhortation he infers from the precedent Verses and proposeth us at the entrance a reason that obligeth us unto this pursuit taken from the honour GOD hath done us to choose us for his Saints and his Beloved Next he commands us compassion benignity humility meekness patience five Vertues that refer as you see to the manner after which we are to carry our selves towards our neighbours and particularly towards those of them that suffer evil or do us any Afterwards he pointeth out two acts of patience and benignity the one is a bearing with and the other the pardoning of one another and to incite us to them he adds the example our LORD and Saviour hath given us of them So we shall have three Points to treat of in this action if the LORD will First the quality of elected of GOD Saints and Beloved which the Apostle gives us at the entrance to sway us to our duty Secondly the five Vertues which he recommends unto us and the exercising of them in the matter of that forbearance and mutual forgiveness which we owe one another And finally in the third place the example of JESUS CHRIST which he sets before our eyes as an accomplisht pattern and a most effectual argument of our sanctification Dear Brethren hear meditate and duly put in practise that Divine Lesson which the LORD JESUS gave you this Morning in the Mysterie of his Table and now repeats by the mouth of his Apostle The Apostle deduceth it from what he had generally asserted in the precedent Verses namely that we have put on the new Man which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him who created him Thence he now concludes Put on then bowels of mercy kindness humility meekness patience The consequence is evident For since we do put on the new Man in JESUS CHRIST it is clear that these Vertues being as they are members and parts of this new Man it 's a duty of ours to put them on and that in defect of them this new Nature which makes us Christians would remain imperfect in us Brethren Mark well this reasoning and learn by it how hugely they deceive themselves who pretend without these Vertues unto the name and inheritance of Christians imagining that they are not necessary for all but only meet for such as will be perfecter and more excellent than the commonalty of the faithful It 's a principle laid down in divers places by the Apostle and acknowledged by the whole Church that no man is in CHRIST except he be a new Creature And himself teacheth us here that whoever is a new Creature must put on compassion and those other Vertues he nameth in order sure it follows then that whosoever hath not put them on is not a new Creature nor by consequent a Christian If therefore you will be Christians if you will aspire to salvation which GOD gives to none but those that are so renounce that pernicious error and embrace the pursuit of all these Vertues with vigorous resolution travelling incessantly in it until you have vested your souls with their habitudes sentiments and affections and fill'd your whole life with their actions It 's the thing to which you are also evidently obliged by the dignity of being the Elect the Saints and the beloved of GOD which you are stated in and the Apostle in this place minds you of Put on saith he compassion kindness as elected of GOD Saints and beloved The Hebrew Grammarians have noted that the word as is used in that language two manner of ways sometimes to signifie the analogy and resemblance of one thing to another and this they call the as of likeness For instance when our Saviour saith Be wise as Scrpents and simple as Doves Sometimes to signifie that the subject we speak of hath not the resemblance but the reality of that particular which we attribute to it and this they term the as of verity As when S. Joh. 1.14 John saith of our LORD JESUS CHRIST We beheld his glory to wit a glory as of the only begotten of the Father His meâ—ning is not that JESUS CHRIST was like the only Son of God but that he was so indeed and in truth and that the glâ—â—y which he and his companions beheld in him was just such as the glory of GOD's true Son should be An as of the first kind compares one thing with another An as of the second compares a thing with its self The first is a comparative Particle as the Grammarians speak and the second a rational one The as here used by the Apostle is of the second kind not of the first For he doth not mean that we should addict our selves to those Vertues which he enjoyns us as do certain other persons elected of God but that we do addict our selves unto them because we have
the honour to be elected of GOD our selves This as doth not compare us with others but with our selves and impoâ—ts as much as if S. Paul had said seeing that or since that you be elected of GOD containing in it this reasoning Such as have the honour to be elected of GOD his Saints and his Beloved ought to be cloathed with humility benignity and meekness Since then you have in JESUS CHRIST the honour to be the Elect the Saints and the Beloved of GOD judge if you 〈◊〉 not obliged to put on all these Vertues We use the word as to the same sense often in our common speech As for example when we say of a good man that he liv'd and dy'd religiously as a Christian that is so as was meet for that quality of Christian which he had and when we advise a young man of good rank to be â—onest in all his conversation as born of a good house and issu'd from a noble and a vertuous Father Of these three qualities which the Apostle here gives the faithful the first is that they are elected of GOD. The election of God is the choice He makes according to his good pleasure of certain persons to call them unto the knowledge of himself and unto the glory of his salvation And this term Election signifies sometimes the resolution he hath taken in his eternal counsel to choose and call them which the Scripture elsewhere calls Eph. 1.11 The determinate purpose of GOD sometimes the execution of this eternal determination when GOD doth in time touch the men of his good pleasure by the efficacy of his Word and Spirit converting them to the faith of his Gospel and separating them by this means from the rest of men who continue in the miserable estate of their nature through their impenitence and unbelief The Apostle in my opinion does comprehend both the one and the other of these two senses when he saith here That we are elected of GOD that is such as he hath chosen and effectively separated from the world according to his determinate purpose calling us unto himself to serve him according to the discipline of his Gospel Now that this quality doth oblige us to put on all the vertues which he recommends unto us in the words following is evident For this very thing is the aim and end of his Election as the Apostle elsewhere informs us when he saith That GOD hath elected us in CHRIST Eph. 1.4 that we might be holy and blameless before him in love And it 's that that Moses yerwhile represented to ancient Israel the type of the new Deut. 26.18 The Lord saith he hath set thee on high this day that is hath raised thee above other Nations by his election that thou might'st be to him a peculiar people and keep his commandments Whence appears how false their calumny is who accuse the doctrine of Election of favouring vice and impenitency If it were so what could have less of reason in it than the Apostles discourse who alledgeth our election to incite us unto the studious pursuance of holiness But it is quite otherwise than these men pretend As GOD's election is the source of sanctification and good works so the asserting and teaching of it is an establishing and a founding of them And they that make their boast of their being elected of GOD but mean time lead a licentious and profane life do mock GOD and men and shall infallibly perish in this false and vain error if they amend not For since GOD's election is never executed without converting a man and sanctifying him and it is not possible on the other hand that any one should know himself elected otherwise than by feeling the real execution of his election it is evidently rashness and a palpable error to imagine that one is elected except he be truly converted unto GOD and indu'd with piety and charity Another quality which the Apostle here gives us is that we are Saints For he is not of the opinion of Rome who calls none Saints but those whom she hath canonized Saint Paul acknowledgeth none for believers who are not Saints Accordingly you know that in the Creed the Church which is the body of all true Christians and not of the canonized only is called holy and the communion of Saints Indeed since there is not a Christian but hath been baptized into JESUS CHRIST and receiv'd the holy Ghost according to the Apostles saying elsewhere Rom. 8. That if any man have not the Spirit of CHRIST he is none of his How can he be a Christian who is not a Saint Seeing both Baptism and the Spirit of CHRIST do sanctifie all those to whom they are truly communicated Now that this quality of Saints or holy Ones doth also oblige us to all the vertues that the Apostle gives us in charge in the following Verses is as clear as the Sun at noon-day For what else is sanctity it self but a piety and an exquisite charity compleat in all its parts and adorned with every vertue Besides by sanctification we are dedicated and consecrated unto GOD so as henceforth we ought not to dispose of our selves but for his service and according to his will which is no other but that we live in all purity honesty and vertue And this is that the LORD signifieth when he so often chargeth his people to be holy You shall he holy unto me saith he for I am holy Lev. 11.44 20.26 and have separated you from other people to be mine The third quality the Apostle gives us here is That we are the Beloved of GOD that is to say those of all men whom he most loveth and dearly respecteth in his Son JESUS CHRIST Since then the love wherewith God honoureth us does oblige us to love him and that we cannot fail of this reciprocal love without herrible ingratitude it is evident that our being the beloved of GOD doth necessarily require of us that we put on all these vertues which the Apostle is about to give us in charge First because it is a necessary and infallible effect of the love we bear to GOD to do what he commands us and he commands us nothing else Joh. 14.15 but the exercising of every vertue If you love me saith he keep my commandments Secondly because true love transformeth him that loveth into the image of the thing loved so as GOD being charity justice and holiness it self it is not possible if we love him truly but that we put on all these divine Vertues Thus you see Believers that the honour we have to be elected of GOD Saints and Beloved doth most strictly oblige us to do what the Apostle commands us that is to embrace all the vertues he is about to represent unto us which he expresseth in one word bidding us put them on that is that we seat them in our hearts and shew them in our lives that we deck our souls with
their habits and adorn our manners with their acts For it 's this is signified by the word put on here figuratively used according to the usual stile of Scripture as we gave you notice in expounding the precedent Text where the Apostle exhorted us to put off the old Man and put on the New The foremost of these Vertues which he recommends unto us are those five which he does expresly nominate in the present Text mercy kindness humility meekness and patience Mercy is a goodness and tenderness of spirit which causeth us to resent the miseries of others and have compassion on them and take part in them as if we suffered them our selves And the Apostle to shew us how quick and deep this sentiment should be in us would have us to put on not mercy simply but bowels of mercy which is a form of speaking taken from the Hebrew language in which the word Bowels is often used to signifie the resentments of piety and the tendernesses of compassion and this not without reason it being clear that compassion doth affect and hugely move the heart the principal of our internal parts It is not enough that we lodge pity in our faces and in our looks externally shewing the movings and appearences of it The miseries of our neighbours must descend into our hearts and reach the depth of our bowels they must affect them with a real grief that may move them and stir up all that is in our power to the affording of them succour For the discipline of JESUS CHRIST doth not at all approve of the rigidness of the Stoick Philosophy which pluck'd up mercy as well as other passions out of the bowels of its Wise man as if to resent trouble or grief were a thing unworthy of a vertuous person Let him remedy the miseries of others said they but let him not feel them Let him succour the men but let him not be touched with their passion First that which they presuppose is false namely that to suffer one's self to be touched with sentiment of grief is a defiling or polluting of vertue There 's nothing unworthy of true vertue but vice now grief is not a vice it is a simple sentiment of nature and for the being wise it is not needful a man should renounce the sentiments of nature it is sufficient to govern them and keep them within their bounds and use them with reason Again this insensibility which they suppose is a chimera and a fiction of their own which cannot take place in the soul of man which GOD hath formed unto sweetness and tenderness more than any other creature as is evident by tears of which none none but man is capable Lastly whereas they would have the wise man succour the miserable without resenting their misery this is both difficult and dangerous For it is a taking away one of the sharpest incitements that spurs us on to assist them it being clear that nothing moves us more powerfully thereto than compassion We must not as those people said remedy other mens miseries without feeling them which is both difficult in our nature and unprofitable though it were easie but quite contrary we must feel them that we may remedy them So likewise there is nothing more cold and less helpful than these insensible persons For eradicating compassion out of our hearts they put in them obdurateness and inhumanity which are infinitely more contrary to true Vertue than grief and emotion Renounce we then Beloved Brethren this rough and inhumane philosophy Let it be no shame to us to be tender and sensible of our neighbours miseries Let us hold compassion not for an infirmity but for a vertue unto which GOD calleth us both by His commands and by the examples as of His Saints so of His Son Himself JESUS CHRIST our LORD Luke 6.36 1 Pet. 3.8 Be ye merciful saith He and one of His Apostles exhorteth us to be full of mutual compassion pityful courteous And our St. Paul goes so sar Rom. 12.15 as he would have us weep with them that weep and the truth is our tears and our resentments though we can do nothing else afford yet some ease to the afflicted The Saints of whom we are told in Scripture have all of them this character of sweetness and humanity They were tender and full of compassion towards all afflicted persons and to alledge no other examples you know how the miseries of men did touch and pierce the heart of our LORD and Saviour who wept when He saw Lazarus's grave and of whom it is said that He is apt to have pity on the ignorant Heb. 5.2 Heb. 4.15 and them that are out of the way and again that He hath compassion of our infimities But beside the law of GOD nature it self demandeth these resentments of us For men being our neighbours that is of one and the same nature we are who sees not but that it is reasonable we should be touched with their miseries And this the rather for that it may betide us to fall into the like our selves and one day need that compassion and succour they now crave of us After the movings of compassion the Apostle commandeth of us the succour and offices of benignity which is a goodness of nature that takes pleasure in and makes it its study to serve and oblige every one and incommodate or disoblige no body that readily stretcheth out its helping hand to the afflicted and freely communicateth its goods to the necessitous A thing which GOD commands us every where in His word willing us there to be communicative to break our bread to the hungry and impart of our substance to those that need The charge of stewards or dispencers which he hath given us obligeth us thereto For He hath put into our hands all the wealth we do possess to the end we should prudently and charitably dispence it to our neighbours And as He promiseth great benedictions and recompences as well in this life as also in the next to those that acquit themselves faithfully of this duty and are kind and beneficent so doth He menace all those that shall fail to do it with grievous and eternal punishments and treats them at every turn as persons not only cruel and inhumane but also unequitable and unjust Unto mercy and kindness the Apostle willeth that we add humility the bafis and foundation of all Christian Vertues the ornament of a believing soul the mother of patience the nurse of charity There is no disposition of soul more pleasing to GOD or more profitable unto men I confess the exercising of it is difficult unto man naturally proud and wilful But the light of the Gospel of CHRIST and the power of His grace do render that easie to us which is hard of it self The pride of man sure springeth not but from his ignorance If he knew himself as he ought he would be humble and instead of glorying in be ashamed of himself Why
then do not we who know the vanity of our being the feebleness of our bodies the malignity of our hearts the ignorance and folly of our minds the perverseness of our affections the uncertainty and misery of our life the demerit of our sins and the eternal woe whereof they are worthy I say why do we not clothe our selves all over with a sincere and profound humility After these consideratons how can we have any puff of pride If you tell me it is true you were such by nature but that the grace of JESUS CHRIST hath made you otherwise I answer that herein you have cause indeed to acknowledge and glorifie His bounty but none to lift up your selves For you have nothing that is good but you received it of GOD and if you have received it why do ye boast of it The more He hath given you the more ought you to humble your selves as those branches bow most and hang down lowest which are most laden with fruit Thus you see that being nothing in your selves and having received of GOD all that you can have it is just that you be humble not to report here either the command for it which GOD gives us in a thousand places or the graces He promiseth unto humility or the pattern of it which He sets before us in His Son JESUS CHRIST or the ruine wherewith He menaceth the haughty After humility the Apostle lodgeth two of its daughters in our souls namely meekness and patience Meekness is properly that which we call gentleness the greatest grace of our behaviour and the amiablest ornament of our life It receives every one with an open heart and a pleasing countenance It is not easily provoked and as far as it can takes all things in good part It is assable and judgeth not with rigour It restrains the stirrings of choler and notwithstanding the occasions offered for it keeps and maintains it self in a sweet calm without becoming angry easily receiving as far as reason permitteth the excuses of those that have offended it and being much more readily appeased than irritated As this vertue is very grateful to others so is it exceedingly profitable and beneficial to our selves For living with men that is to say with weak and wretched creatures without gentleness that sweetneth all things we must needs be in a continual irritation and never have joy nor repose Patience is the sister of gentleness they do both of them bear vexations things without exasperation only with this difference that gentleness is exercised in reference to the fullenness the sottishness and the impertinency of those we converse with patience undergoeth other greater evils as outrages and affronts and those very afflictions which are sent us of GOD as sicknesses and losses and the like But for the better clearing of the nature of these two Vertues the Apostle particularly recommends unto us two eminent acts of them extremely necessary for Christians and of singular use in our whole life when he addeth bearing with one another and pardoning one another if one hath a quarrel against the other The first of these two acts pertaineth as well unto meekness as to patience For first if there be any defect either in the humour or in the person or even in the faith and piety of our brethren provided it be not a capital crime that tendeth to the overthrow of religion and salvation we ought not for this break with them nor reject or sadden them but bear with them with all sweetness remembring both the need we have that the like equity and condescendance be used towards us in many things wherein we are no more perfect than our brethren in the fore-mentioned and the example of our LORD and Saviour who according to the Prophet's prediction Mâ—â— 12.20 did not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax Then in the second place if our neighbours have offended us either by word or deed we must not forthwith betake our selves unto revenge as men of the world doâ— but endeavour to overcome them by sweetness bearing their wronging us with a Christian and generous resolution The other act that the Apostle commandeth us and which likewise respects those two vertues is our pardoning one another if one hath a quarrel against the other This is yet more than our bearing with one another which he first required of us For there are people found that bear with the fullenness or the infirmities of their neighbour yea with his offences whether it be that they have not the means to avenge themselves or that they count it not expedient to do it for the present who mean time keep and brood upon their resentments in the secret of their hearts waiting for an opportunity to shew them with advantage Wherefore the Apostle is not content to tell us that we should bear with one another he addeth further that we do pardon one another that is efface out of our souls all resentment of an offence received and eradicate all desire of revenge heartily remitting to our neighbours Mat. 18 35. the fault they have committed against us as our LORD enjoyns us when he saith that his Father will irremissibly punish us if we do not from our hearts forgive every one his Brother This duty reacheth universally to all the faithful and takes place in all kind of subjects as the Apostle signifies when he adds indefinitely if one that is any one of us hath a quarrel against another whatever the occasion of the quarrel be whether injurious speeches given or actions done either against our selves or any one of ours But because S. Paul was not ignorant how difficult this piece of Christian piety is our flesh having no passion stronger and more uneasie to be subdued than the resentment of offences and the desire of revenge to reduce us to this sweetness and divine patience and to beat down the fierceness of our hearts he proposeth unto us the example of the LORD JESUS the Prince of our discipline and Pattern of our life As CHRIST saith he hath pardoned you so likewise do ye He does the same also in the Epistle to the Ephesians Eph. 4.32 where he sets before us the example of GOD forgiving us all our sins for his Son's sake And what stronger reason than this could the Apostle alledge For JESUS CHRIST being our Head and our elder Brother unto whose image we ought to be conformed according to the predestinâ—tion of GOD how shall we be his members his Disciples and his living Pourtraits if we have nothing in us of that great and divine goodness he hath shewed us Though he had not exercised it but towards others yet we should be obliged to an imitation of Him But it 's our selves that he hath pardoned and not others only so that his example doth yet much the more strictly bind us For the inhumanity of that wretched servant in the Parable who when he himself had been gratifi'd by his
it Such as are not vertuous but after this manner are not so indeed They are subtil and dextrous but not good men And though the external lustre of these goodly works they do be apt to deceive men yet it will not be able to satisfie their own conscience if they have any and much less to content the eyes of GOD who judgeth of things by their in-side and their verity not by their apparence For that any act of beneficence of clemency of meeknesse and humanity may be holy and acceptable unto GOD 't is requisite it should proceed from a sincere love towards our neighbours If it come from any other principle it is of no value in reality how plausible and pompous soever it be in shew It 's a false and spurious production a fruit sair without but worm-eaten and corrupt within Beside that the thing speaks of its self St. Paul proclaims it in the thirteenth Chapter of the first to the Corinthians If I distribute all my goods saith he to feed the poor and have not charity it profits me nothing Therefore Brethren the same Apostle having here afore charged us to bear with one another to pardon one another and to perform all other acts of kindness mercy meeknesse and patience doth now add very pertinently for the purging of our hearts and works from all the venome of hypocrisie that together with these vertues which he hath exhorted us unto we have above all charity as that which is the soul of every true vertue and without which the fairest and most esteemed actions are but as an ancient Doctor said well glittering sins And beside all this saith the Apostle put on charity which is the bond of perfection And let the peace of GOD hold the chief place in your hearts unto which ye are called in one body and be ye thankful You plainly see that he recommends unto us three Christian vertues Charity the Peace of GOD and Thankfulness Now as for the last of these he only names it without saying ought else of it whereas in referrence to the other two he briefly sets before us some considerations that may oblige us to take up the studious pursuance of them For he saith of charity that it is the bond of Perfection and of the Peace of GOD that we are thereunto called in one body In compliance then with the order of our Text we will treat of three heads in this action if GOD please first of Charity secondly of the Peace of GOD and then for a conclusion in some brief touches of gratitude or thankfulness about which the Apostle speaks but a word and no more There is no person in the Church but knows that Charity is that pure and sincere and vertuous love which each of us doth owe to other men our neighbours upon the account of that communion of nature we have with them as also principally because of the image of GOD after which they all are created according to the expresse command that He hath given us to love them as our selves I grant it hath divers degrees and doth embrace men with some inequality these more strictly and those less according to the differences of their merit and worth as also of the union we have with them either in nature or in the state or in grace Nevertheless it extends its self unto all and doth not account any one a stranger but obligeth and serveth them freely as far as its ability permits and when occasion is offered For our LORD and Saviour teacheth us in the parable of that poor man whom the Samaritan assisted Luke 12.36 finding him in that pitiful estate the theeves had left him on the way from Jericho to Jerusalem that every man that needeth our help is our neighbour So that GOD and right reason obliging us to love whom ever that is our neighbour it 's out of all doubt that there is no man but we ought to love But as Charity hath a much greater extent than the friendship of the world so is its flame much more pure and holy For to say true men of the world love none but themselves it being evident that if they affect any it is not so much to do them good as to draw profit or pleasure from them But Charity doth sincerely affect its neighbour desiring to him and procuring him that good which is necessary to make him happy And the difference of these two affections comes from their causes For Charity issueth from the love of GOD whereas worldly friendship proceeds from that vicious and inordinate love which every one beareth to himself so as Charity loving our neighbour for GOD's sake seeks nothing but GOD's glory and the welfare of the person it loveth whereas a man of the world not loving but for his own sake does accordingly seek nothing but his own interests And though this doth plainly appear in the whole conduct of the one and the other of these loves yet it may be particularly observed in this one event namely that that affliction and misery which extinguisheth worldly amity doth make the affections of charity to flame more than ever an evident sign that the one is neither bred nor fed but by the fruit it gathers from the thing it loves whereas the other on the contrary being kindled by that ray of the Divine image which it sees ingraven on the nature of its neighbour is kept alwaies in and the more it sees him need its compassions and good offices the more it increaseth and redoubleth its endeavours It 's this holy and Christian Charity which the Apostle would have us put on And besides all this saith he put on Charity These words as they lye in the original may be taken two manner of waies both of them apt and good and such as have their authors Some interpret them and above or over all these things Others a little otherwise and for all these things Both the one and the others do accord that all those things which the Apostle intends are the same he had spoken of immediately before to wit those bowels of mercy that kindness that humility meekness and patience which in the precedent verses he commands us to put on Now then after the sense of the former of those interpreters he means that to this rich garment we should add charity putting it uppermost as a precious and an useful robe to cover and keep all the rest Not that we must put on charity last in regard of time after all those other vertues for on the contrary it ought to be first formed in us as the parent of whom the most part of the rest are to be brought forth But the Apostle makes use of this comparison upon the account of other resemblances that these things have with one another and the authors of this exposition do note three of that kind One that as the robe we put over our clothes is greater and larger than our other clothing so
charity hath by much a greater extent than any of the fore-mentioned vertues For whereas Mercy does but succour the miserable Kindness but help them that have need or us Sweetness but caress those with whom we converse and Patience but bear with those that offend us charity embraceth them altogether and is affectionate towards our neighbours generally both those that are in adversity and such as are in prosperity persons accommodated as well as those that are necessitous friends and foes the perfect and the infirm those that oblige us and those that offend us and those likewise that look upon us as indifferent Secondly as that last piece of our clothing which also covers all the rest and is most in sight is commonly fairest and the richest so likewise is Charity without doubt more excellent than all the other Vertues which make up a Christian's clothing Lastly as the one doth mark out and distinguish men being usually the character of their rank and of their quality in the Town or in the State so the other is the Christians livery and a mark of the honour they have to be the children of GOD and disciples of his Son Joh. 13.35 as our Saviour said By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye love one another These considerations are pretty and pleasing But I doubt whether they be not over-sine and something too far fetch'd I should rather say that the Apostle by those words of his And above all these things put on Charity doth purely and plainly mean that above all that is principally we be owners of Charity signifying to us thereby as he else-where teacheth us at large that it 's the excellentest of all Christian Vertues to that degree that all the rest do remain useless without it being but so many vain and fallacious pictures which have nothing of sirnmesse or solidity in them For instance Mercy without Charity is but a weaknesse of nature Without it kindness or benignity is but indiscreet profusion Courteousnesse but deceitful tattle Humility low spiritednesse and Patience a stupidity It 's the Divine sire of Charity that animateth all these Vertues and maketh them perfect and gives them all the noblenesse and acceptablenesse to GOD they have It 's with good reason therefore that after the Apostle had recommended them to us he adds that above all we have charity as that which is of all the richest and most excellent 1 Cor. 23. Not to speak here of the advantage he else-where gives it above all other parts of Christianity even to the preferring it not only before the gift of tongues and miracles before the grace of prophesie and all the other mervails where-with JESUS CHRIST adorned the beginnings of His Church but even before Faith and Hope as that which will endure for ever and flourish in the very sanctuary of immortality whereas all those other gifts of GOD which have their exercise only here beneath shall cease whence he concludes that Charity is greater than all those other graces The other Exposition which interprets these words of St. Paul And for all these things put on Charity is also very pertinent and what we have been saying doth sufficiently explain the sense of it For since Charity is the soul and the perfection of all the sore-named Vertues which gives them all the valuableness and worth they have the acts of them being vain without Charity as the Apostle says it is clear that for the having possession of them Charity must be had Beside 't is it that exciteth and settâ—th them on work as also that with a kind of necessity produceth and formeth them in our souls For it is not postible but that the man that truly loves his neighbour should be sensible of his distresses if he be afflicted gratifie him with his beneficence if he needs it stoop to his necessities and humble himself about him bear with his defects if he discover any treat him kindly condescend to his infirmities and seek to him if he withdraw from his friendship and patiently take his offences if he so far forget himself as to do him any according to the Apostle's saying that Charity is patient and kind not envious nor insolent 1 Cor. 13.4 5 7. Rom. 13.9 10. that it is not puffed up that it endureth all things believeth all things beareth all things Wherefore he affirms else-where that He that loveth others hath fulfilled the law and that this command Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self doth comprehend in it and sammarily re-capitulate all the duties injoyned in the rest of the Commandments and concludes that Charity is the fulnesse of the Law that is the thing that filleth up all the articles of it Hence it comes that St. John the LORD JESUS His beloved disciple as we read in the Church-history in his extreme old age having no longer the strength as afore-time to make large Sermons in the assemblies of the faithful contented himself to say thâ—se sew words Little children love one another judging and that rightly that he had compris'd in this short sentence all the true duties of Christians Since then the nature and secondity and efficacy of Charity is such you see how great reason the Apostle had to recommend unto us the putting of it on for our having and exercising that mercy benignity humility meekness and patience he told us of afore His adding that Charity is the bond of perfection hath the same tendency But here it comes into question what that perfection is which Charity is the bond of and Expositors do labour to explain it to us Some understand it of the perfection of all vertues which this one doth bind and put together comprehending and embracing them all as we said even now and the Romanists do thence draw an argument to consirm their doctrine of justification by works For say they those that perfectly fulfill the law are justified by the works of the law Now since Charity is in this sense the bond of perfection it is evident that such as have true Charity do perfectly fulfill the law whence it follows that they are justified by the works of the law But letting pass for the present that which they presuppose namely that Charity is here called the bond of perfection because it bindeth together and comprehendeth in it the observation of all the commandments of the law it is clear however that that which they pretend will not follow First because it is not sufficient for a mans being justified by the works of the law that he fulfills it after some certain time unto his life's end 'T is necessary he should have fulfill'd it from the beginning and been exempt of sin not only from his childhood and youth as that justiciary says in the Gospel but even from his nativity supposing then but not granting that he that hath Charity doth perfectly fulfill the Law without failing in so much as one point this as you see
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
Mat. 18.30 that is for His cause and unto His honour and with confidence in Him It 's in this sense the Apostle takes these words in our Text. Do all things in the name of the LORD JESVS He means first that we refer all we do unto His glory and take His honour for the end of all our actions and secondly that we act according to His will and order and lastly with an entire confidence in Him not presuming ought of our selves as if we were able to do any thing considerable by our own strength nor expecting any success but only from His favour and benediction Such is the rule which the Apostle here gives us By it you see First that he banisheth out of our lives all the unfruitful works of darkness that is all vitious actions actions contrary to justice to charity and to other Christian vertues it being evident that if we do nothing but in the name of the LORD JESUS we shall do none of these things since they all are opposite to His will to His commands and to His glory Secondly by the same means he perfecteth and enliveneth all those works of ours which of themselves and in their kind are good and commanded of God engrafting them by this rule upon the true motive from which they ought to proceed and directing them to the true end unto which they ought to tend which is without doubt the name of CHRIST and clensing them from all that impurity and viciousness which vanity or self-love might taint them with Good will be truly good if we do it in the name of JESUS CHRIST that is for His sake upon consideration of Him alone without seeking the approbation and acceptance or the interest and service of any other Lastly by the same rule the Apostle sanctifies those of our words and actions which are in their own nature indifferent purifying them by the name of the LORD from the filth and abuse wherewith the viciousness of men doth pollute them and elevating them to a degree of moral goodness which they had not of themselves in that he consecrates them to the name of the LORD and makes them to serve grace whereas of themselves they were instituted only for the uses of nature For instance if you observe this rule of the Apostle in your eating and drinking actions as every one knows indifferent of their own nature first this sacred name of the LORD JESUS will purge the exercise of them of the excesses of intemperance and drunkenness on one hand and of the vain and foolish scruples of superstition on another Secondly being referred to the honour of GOD and accompanied with invocation of His grace and thankful acknowledgement of His bounty of indifferent as they were in themselves they become good and holy and acceptable unto GOD. However I willingly grant that we must not so take the Apostles precept as if we were obliged in every act even to the least word we utter to raise our thoughts actually to the name of JESUS CHRIST and expresly implore His assistance by a particular prayer and formally eye His glory It sufficeth that we frequently and ordinarily make this application of mind to the name to the command to the help and to the glory of our LORD But necessary it is that we have the habit of this holy disposition so formed and radicated in our hearts that even when time or place or some other necessity surprizeth us and gives us not the leisure to think actually on the name of the LORD our souls yet do bend that way as of themselves being so habituated to it as without other discourse or consideration they may as to the substance discharge this duty and never do nor say any thing that tendeth not to the glory of our Saviour and is not conform to His will and consistent with the resolution we all ought to have of relying on JESUS CHRIST alone and referring none of our actions to any other end than His honour But I come to the other part of our Text wherein the Apostle adds that we give thanks by JESUS CHRIST unto our GOD and Father These words may be taken two wayes either for another precept apart added to the former or for some part and dependance of it In the first relation it 's a new order the Apostle gives us to thank GOD for the benefits He hath vouchsafed us in His Son He gives the same order to the faithful at Ephesus in welnigh the same words Giving thanks alwayes saith he for all things in the name of our LORD JESVS CHRIST unto our GOD and Father Under the second consideration the words are a reason of what he recommended afore and the title under which we ought to do all things in the name of the LORD JESUS namely for the rendring unto GOD the Father by His Son the thanks we owe him so as our whole life may be but homage and a perpetual act of gratitude to GOD by JESUS CHRIST His Son our LORD For it is not to be doubted but that the best and most proper means of thanking GOD the Father for those infinite benefits He hath confer'd upon us by the communion of His Son is so to frame our lives that we neither do nor say any thing but in the name of that Son of His that is as we have explained it according to His will and for His glory Now though it import not much which of these two expositions we follow since at the bottom the thing is still the same yet it seems to me the latter is more pertinent because it doth better and more clearly connect the Apostles words Thanksgiving is one of the most necessary and most universal offices of a Christian For if it be ingratitude to receive a kindness from any one without resenting it and giving him thanks for it what moment of our lives is there wherein we are not obliged to perform this duty unto GOD First of all this being of ours this life this body this soul and all the faculties of our nature are largesses of His which for all they be common to us with other men are not to be despised but ought to be consider'd as effects of an infinite goodness Then again what remerciments doth not the sending of His Son into the world and the death He suffered for us by the will of His Father oblige us to What shall I say as to those infinite blessings He hath obtained for us the remission of our sins our adoption to the number of His children the glory and immortality we hope for Add hereto His continual providence both over His Church in general and over each of us in particular His favourable bearing with us however great be not only our infirmities and imperfections but even infidelities and ingratitudes the admirable constancy of His Divine grace which our indignities can neither overcome nor put off and imperfections but even infidelities and ingratitudes the admirable
GOD. Let us eschew at once these peoples miscarriage and their misery and according to the Apostle's prudent and divine injunction whatever we do whether the action be addressed unto GOD or respect our neighbour do it all as unto GOD and not as unto man Let us seek for neither other spectator nor other remunerator than Him alone Be we content with his approbation and with the testimony of our own consciences whatever censure men do pass upon us being assured as St. Paul here adds that if we serve the LORD if it be Him we obey if it be to His will and glory that we consecrate and direct the course of our lives we shall infallibly receive from His bountiful hand the reward of the inheritance and on the contrary that they that do unjustly and despising His truth are injurious either to His Majesty or His creatures shall receive what they have unjustly done without respect of persons Looking for so great and dreadful a judgement at which the least of our actions whether they be good or evil shall be examined in presence of the assembly of the whole universe what manner of persons 2 Pet. 3.11 I beseech you ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness Let us search our hearts and make inspection into all the parts of our life let us cleanse our souls and bodies from all filthiness and impurity and timely judge our selves wounding and cutting off with the righteous sword of a lively and serious repentance all the evil we find in our selves and living henceforth justly soberly and religiously without scandal before men and with all good conscience in the sight of GOD that we may next week present our selves at His holy Table to our edification and comfort and appear at the last day before His sacred and dreadful tribunal without confusion to the glory of JESUS CHRIST who hath redeemed us and our own eternal salvation Amen THE FORTY SIXTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. IV. VER II III IV. Verse II. Persevere in Prayer watching in it with thanksgiving III. Praying together also for us that GOD do open us the door of the word to publish the mysterie of CHRIST for which also I am prisoner IV. That I may manifest it as I ought to speak DEAR Brethren Prayer is the Christian's sacrifice the holiest exercise of his devotion his consolation in troubles his stay in weaknesses the principal weapon he useth in combats his oracle in doubts and perplexities his safety in perils the sweetning of his bitternesses the balm of his wounds his help in adversity the support and ornament of his prosperity and in a word the key of the treasury of GOD which opens it to him and puts in his hand all the good things that are necessary for the one and the other life this of the earth and that of heaven Hence it is that the holy Apostles give it us in charge with so much affection and diligence in all those divine instructions of theirs which are come to our hands Not to seek further off for instances of it you see how St. Paul being upon the point to conclude this excellent Epistle to the Colossians after he had informed their faith and regulated their manners and explained their duty both in general towards all men and towards certain sorts of men in particular within the societies in which they live sets an exhortation to prayer at the head of some other documents which he addeth before he makes an end Persevere in prayer saith he watching therein with thanksgiving And in truth it 's with a great deal of reason that he reminds us of so important and so necessary a duty For since GOD is the Father of lights from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift how can we without His favour and benediction either acquire or conserve the faculties and habits of this divine life unto which the holy Apostle would form us together with the vertues that relate to it Since then prayer hath the promise of obtaining from His liberality whatsoever it shall ask of him in faith it 's upon good ground that the Apostle wills the Colossians to address themselves continually to GOD by prayer for the meet and faithful discharging of those duties he prescribed them After this he further adds two advertisements more the one of conversing wisely with those that are without and the other to season their speech the principal instrument of conversation with the salt of grace Whereupon he concludes this Epistle with the praises of Tychicus and Onesimus who were the bearers of it and with salutations he makes them on the behalf of some then with him adjoyning his own to the Colossians themselves and likewise to the faithful of Laodicea This is the summ of this last Chapter of his letter as you shall here more particularly by the will of GOD in the following actions At present we purpose His grace assisting to entertain you with what he saith of prayer in those three Verses we have read and to do it in order we will treat one after another of the two points that offer themselves in the same first of prayer in general Persevere in prayer watching therein with thanksgiving Secondly of their praying particularly and expresly for him which he requireth of them Praying together also for us c. Man being in some sort secretly conscious of his own weakness and knowing how little succour second causes can afford him for the conservation and the happiness of his life is in a manner naturally inclin'd to call unto his aid by prayer that veiled and invisible Deity whose Providence he scenteth in every thing though he perceiveth not its form All religions in the world do give clear and very express testimony to this truth there never having been any known but that had its prayers and letanies addressed to GOD and greatest idolaters and the deplorablest wicked men are wont to cry out when a danger surpriseth them O LORD help me O GOD deliver me lifting up their eyes at that time to Heaven as if nature in that case did its self compell them to do homage to that Majesty which they outrage or blaspheme through the rest of their lives But what Nature doth too too imperfectly teach us we learn plainly and fully from the Scripture where we have both express commands to call on GOD and promises of favourable audience and examples of all holy men under the one and the other Covenant whose orisons the Holy Spirit hath taken care to keep up for us in these sacred registers of the Church St. Paul presupposing therefore here that the Faithful he wrote to had this exercise of prayer familiar among them according to that common principle of nature and of Scripture does only regulate them in the manner of performing it advising them to persevere in it to watch in it and to accompany it with thanksgiving As for perseverance in prayer 't is not without reason that
subject and do entitle themselves Monarchs of not forbearing to put even greatest Princes and Emperors under the yoke of their domination and to exact of them as a mark of lowest servitude the kissing of their feet But this holy and admirable humility of the Apostle appears further still in his speaking as he does of Onesimus whom he sent with Tychicus unto the Colossians He is saith he our faithful Brother c. For who think you was this Onesimus to whom he does so much honour as to call him his faithful and beloved brother Dear Brethren it was a poor fugitive bond-servant that is a person of the meanest and most despicable condition of any at that time as St. Paul himself gives us to understand in the Epistle which he wrote in favour of this at-length-happy fugitive unto Philemon the Colossian his Master where he plainly intimates that this poor man stealing from his Master's house had fled into Italy and got to the City of Rome for safety But oh the admirable providence of GOD who knoweth how to carry on the salvation of His elect by waies that we cannot comprehend the Apostle hapning to be prisoner there and Onesimus led by his curiosity or some other such occasion having heard him was so affected at his preaching as that of a Pagan he became a Christian of a servant of Philemon a free-man of JESUS CHRIST and instead of that temporal impunity for the crime committed against his Master which he fought at Rome he there found the eternal remission of his sins and the salvation of his soul This is that which St. Paul elsewhere means when he saith that he begat him in his bonds Phil. 10. Now the Apostle having shewed him the fault he had committed in deserting his Master he resolves to return home to him and voluntarily render up himself unto his yoke again And that Philemon might pardon his offence he makes him the bearer of a letter which he writes him on this subject a letter so full of all the expressest testimonies of a tender and ardent affection which may be given as does sufficiently prove he did in truth account him as he here terms him his beloved Brother But some of the ancient Writers of the Church do further intimate that Onesimus profited so well in the knowledge of GOD and in piety as notwithstanding the meanness of his condition after the flesh he was advanced to the sacred ministery of the Gospel and executed it in the Church of Ephesus And truly the employment the Apostle gives him here in reference to this whole Church and the company of Tychicus whom he associates him with and the honourable title he gives him stiling him not only his beloved brother which every Christian is capable of but moreover faithful seems to shew that he had some office upon the account whereof for his conscionable acquitting himself in it this testimonial of faithfulness is given him And herein I conceive the Apostle doth also make a secret opposition between the good conscience with which he demeaned himself in this employment and the unfaithfulness he had afore-time shewed to his Master during the time of his ignorance if he hath been otherwhile unfaithful saith he he is now faithful after well-nigh the same manner as the Apostle elsewhere alluding to the word Onesimus which was his name and in Greek signifies profitable says of him to Philemon his Master He was in time past to thee unprofitable Philem. 11. but now profitable to thee and to me This is that Dear Brethren which the first part of the Text doth contain Come we now to the second In it the Apostle presents to the Colossians the salutations of three faithful persons all the three joyntly Ministers of the Gospel and by nation Jews who were then at Rome to serve and assist and refresh him in his imprisonment Aristarchus saith he saluteth you and so the rest in order Whence we may observe first in general what was the zeal and what the charity of those primitive Christians that the hatred and rage of the World was not able to keep them from rendring their devoirs and services to the Confessors and Martyrs of JESUS CHRIST even in Prisons nor from hastning to them out of places ever so far off to succour and comfort them it being evident that of the eight persons mentioned here and in the following Text some came from Greece others from Asia and some again from Syria and Palestine that is many hundred leagues to visit and serve St. Paul And by these Salutations which for their part they send the Colossians you see how these holy and charitable souls were affectionate to flocks as well as Pastors and those that were absent as well as them that were present In fine the Apostles vouchsafing to be as their Secretary on such an occasion shews us that he approves these offices of civility that is salutations of such as are present and by Letter of such as are absent In truth a Christian whose Charity and unfeigned cordial love of men is the principal vertue and as it were the soul and one of the prime principles of his life ought to acquit himself sedulously in all due offices of humanity and if there be in the deportments of other men any thing humane and praise-worthy he should practice it and sanctifie it to his LORDS use As for these three persons in particular the Apostle gives each of them his Elogium The first is Aristarchus a native of Thessalonica in Macedonia Act. 19.20 27.19 20 27. a person noted in the History of the Acts where you see him all along inseparably fastened to S. Paul a companion in his travels and in his tryals running the danger of his life with him in the sedition at Ephesus at his departure thence following him into Greece into Macedonia into Asia and Judea and at last embarking with him when he was carried Prisoner to Rome For this cause the holy Apostle in acknowledgment of so admirable a zeal makes him a sharer with him in his Crown terming him a Captive or Prisoner with him inasmuch as though those unjust Judges had not condemned him yet he took as great a part in the Captivity of St. Paul as if sentence had been given against his own person The second is Mark whom he signalizeth by the honour he had to be Barnabas his cousin german one of the most excellent Disciples of our LORD and that laboured in his work with greatest zeal and fervour as you see in the History of the Acts and some of the Ancients have even attributed to him the divine Epistle to the Hebrews The glory of this holy man being very great in all the Church of GOD the Apostle conceiv'd it a sufficient recommendation of Mark to say he was his Sisters Son He addeth only concerning whom you have received order I am much of their mind who understand these words of some letter that
him when the LORD calleth us thereto It 's this way Christians that we shall get to that heavenly Kingdom in which St. Paul is lodg'd after his combats and there receive with him from the merciful hand of our Father the glorious crown of immortality which He on His great day will give to us and to all those that shall have lov'd the appearing of His Son unto Whom with Him and the Holy Spirit the only true GOD blessed for ever be honour praise and glory to ages of ages Amen THE FORTY NINTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. IV. VER XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII Verse XII Epaphras who is one of you a servant of CHRIST saluteth you striving alwaies for you in prayer that ye might abide perfect and compleat in all the will of GOD. XIII For I bear him record that he hath a great zeal for you and for them who are of Laodicea and for them of Hierapolis XIV Luke the beloved Physician saluteth you and Demas also XV. Salute the brethren who are at Laodicea and Nymphas and the Church which is in his house XVI And when this Epistle hath been read among you cause that it be also read in the Church of the Laodiceans and that you read also the Epistle from Laodicea XVII And say to Archippus take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the LORD that thou fulfill it XVIII The salutation by the own hand of me Paul Remember my bonds Grace be with you Amen DEAR Brethren The LORD JESUS being upon the point to quit the earth and making as it were a declaration of His last will chargeth His Disciples above all things to love one another with a sincere and ardent affection like that He bore us This mutual love He appoints to be the badge of our profession Joh. 13.35 By this saith he shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another Accordingly you know that His Spirit failed not to imprint this Divine mark upon those first Christians whom He formed in the City of Jerusalem by the Apostles preaching Acts 4.32 animated with the vertue of His heavenly fire The whole multitude of them saith the holy story was of one heart and of one soul neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own but they had all things common This union and admirable correspondence continued a long time among the faithful and was observed by the Pagans with wonder witness he who about two hundred years after the birth of our LORD reproacheth Christians that they know one another by certain secret signs and love almost before they are acquainted and all of them call one another indifferently brethren and sisters Now as error and passion do abuse the best things this poor ignorant takes their holy and divine concord for some execrable conspiracy and referrs the mysterie of their amity unto infamous commerces whereas all their union grew from Heaven and was founded upon piety and breathed nothing but honesty and sanctity nor did tend but to the glory of GOD and the supreme happiness of men Beside the Apostles writings which expos'd in publick view did plainly discover to the unpassionate how pure and honest and holy the laws of their charity were the manners and the lives and actions of those primitive Christians did also evidently justifie the same There are left us GOD be thanked divers excellent informations in the books of the first antiquity by which the marvels of the charity and mutual love of those holy men do plainly appear And not to speak of others you have fair and illustrious marks of it in this conclusion of St. Paul's Epistle unto the Colossians who sheweth us that his prison neither hindred divers faithful men from joyning themselves unto him in this affliction nor him nor them again from minding absent Christians and charitably embracing the Churches of Colosse and Laodicea and Hierapolis You here see the love of Pastors to their flocks the dear affection of flocks to their Pastors and the divine communication of Churches one with another Psal 133.1 If therefore it be a goood and pleasant thing as the Psalmist singeth to see brethren maintaining a due entercourse with each other grudge not this hour My Beloved which we yet oblige you to spend in the consideration of this Text having not been able to finish it entirely in our last action Let this admirable amity of the first Christians rejoyce you and give you an ardent desire to imitate it Have ye for one another sentiments and movings of heart like to theirs You have already heard how St. Paul having advertised the faithful at Colosse that he sent Tychicus and Onesimus unto them to inform them of his estate doth give them the recommendations of Aristarchus and Mark and Jesus He now addeth those of Epaphras and Luke and Demas and then his own to the Church of Laodicea and to a faithful man named Nymphas with an order to impart this his Epistle to them and to advertise Archippus of his duty Whereupon he endeth with his ordinary salutation conjuring them to remember his bonds and recommending them to the grace of GOD. For the deducing of these four points by the assistance of GOD in the same order as they are couched in the Text we must first consider who these three persons were whose salutations the Apostle presents to the Colossians The first of the three is Epaphras of whom he spake afore in very honourable terms at the beginning of this Epistle where he stileth him Colos 1.7 8. his dear fellow servant and a faithful Minister of CHRIST and gives him the glory of having instructed the Colossians in the knowledge of the Gospel and of having taken the care to let him know the charity they had for him Here he qualifies him in like manner a fervant of CHRIST that is a Minister of his and an Officer of His house in the work of the Gospel Moreover he informs us that this holy man was a Colossian that is was born in their City or at least made his ordinary abode there Epaphras saith he who is one of you a servant of CHRIST saluteth you Some learned men * Grotius Phil. 2.28 are of opinion that it 's this same Pastor whom the Apostle calls Epaphroditus and of whom he says so much good in the Epistle to the Philippians But I do not see that this conjecture is either founded or followed by any of the ancients I confess that the name Epaphras is a contraction of Epaphroditus and such a diminution is ordinary in the Greek and in the Latin tongue in the proper names of men But if it were one and the same person there is no reason why the Apostle should name him diversly in these two Epistles in the one contractedly and with diminution in the other the name at length and entire Considering withal that no part of what is
the will of the LORD is and elsewhere again he commandeth us to prove it The necessity of the other point Rom. 12.2 our LORD JESUS CHRIST sheweth us when He saith in the Gospel according to St. Matthew Not every one that saith unto me LORD LORD shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven Mat. 7.21 I acknowledge that while the beleever is here below there want many degrees both in his knowledge of the will of GOD and in the obedience he renders Him of that ultimate and supreme perfection which he shall one day attain unto in Heaven 1 Cor. 13.12 according to the Apostle's assertion in 1 Epist to the Corinthians that now we see through a glass darkly and know but in part but then we shall see face to face and know as we are known Yet this hinders not but that setting this comparison aside that measure of faith and holiness which the faithful do at present attain unto may be termed a perfection and compleatness because it is without hypocrisie reaching to internals and externals and doth include all the parts of true piety and chastity not one left out And it 's in this sense that the truly faithful are oft-times in Scripture called perfect and compleat to wit in reference to the state and measure of the present life for a distinguishing of them not only from prophane and brutish men who take up no part of the will of GOD at all but also from hypocrites and carnal Christians who consider but a part thereof halting between two and are throughly and absolutely neither in CHRIST nor of the world Epaphras had reason to desire this perfection for his Colossians since that no one without it can inherit everlasting life And they who dogmatize that it is not universally necessary for the obtaining of salvation and that it is a matter of counsel as they call it not of command they I say are grievously mistaken and do by this pernicious errour open a door of licence unto wicked men and furnish them with pillows to sleep upon in mortal security For our parts dear Brethren follow we the prayer of Epaphras and take good heed we never count that thing superfluous or unnecessary which he so instantly beg'd of GOD for his flock and sheep And knowing that they shall have no part in Heaven whose righteousness doth not exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees and that JESUS CHRIST will receive in thither none but them that have done the will of GOD His Father let us apply our selves with all our might â—o know it and fulfil it Let us give our selves no rest untill by prayers and tears and by continual labour and exercise in the Gospel we have attained to be perfect and compleat in all the will of GOD. Yet it is not enough to attain hereto we must abide and stand firm in it as the Apostle here says persevere constantly to our last breath in this brave and blessed undertaking neither the menaces nor the caresses of the world neither the Sophisms of seducers nor the scandals of false brethren nor the weaknesses of our own flesh ever prevailing over us to make us vary For you know that the crown of salvation is for them alone that persevere It 's thus that Epaphras strove to obtain of GOD by his ardent and assiduous prayers that the Colossians might abide perfect and compleat in all the will of GOD. But because the Apostle knew how much it concerned this people to be firmly perswaded of the affection of their Pastor that he might assure them fully of it he alledgeth to them the authority of his own testimony For saith he I bear him witness that he hath a great zeal that is a very ardent affection for you and for them of Laodicea and of Hierapolis These were two Cities of Phrygia neighbouring on Colosse where the LORD JESUS had Churches that served Him in the faith of His Gospel And that of Laodicea is one of the seven to whom He caused to be written by St. John those excellent Epistles which are read in the first Chapters of his Apocalypse You see what care the Apostle takes to set Epaphras right in the Spirit of his flock Whence you may judge how execrable is the rage or envy of those who quite contrary to this holy man do by their detractions and ill offices endeavour to alienate or slacken the inclination of Churches towards their Pastors and in so doing render their ministry unprofitable to them But to proceed After the salutation of Epaphras the Apostle presents them that of Luke and Demas Luke the beloved Physitian saluteth you saith he and also Demas It 's the constant opinion from all antiquity that the first of these two is the same St. Luke that wrote the third of our Gospels and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles two of the most excellent pieces that we have in the Divine writings of the New Testament And verily besides the name of Luke his own history as seems to me leads us to it For himself relateth that he embarqued with St. Paul when he was carried prisoner into Italy and that he came with him to Rome as you may see in the two last Chapters of the Acts where he describes this voyage Therefore being there with the Apostle there is all the probability in the World that he 's the person St. Paul speaks of in this place it being not found that mention is made in Scripture of any other faithful man of that name He calls him Physician because of his former profession as you see that St. Matthew is sometimes termed a Publican because he e'rwhile was so before his conversion But that same heavenly call that had changed Matthew from a Publican into an Apostle and afore-time of a keeper of sheep made David a Pastor of Nations wrought a like miracle in St. Luke and of a Physician to the body made him a Physician of souls His two books shew us how able he was in this Divine art and as often as you read them at home or hear them publickly here where because of their excellency they are both of them explained to you make account that they are a quantity of wholsome medicines presented you to be applied to your souls as you have need I well know that there are some modern Expositors who referr what the Apostle saith here unto another Luke but they produce no valuable reason For whereas they alledge that the Apostle would have adorned this person with some more illustrious Elogie if he had spoken of Luke the Evangelist this is extremely feeble Is it not a very glorious qualifying of him to call him his well-beloved It 's a great honour to have the love of so holy an Apostle and an assured testimony of piety and vertue Withal it is not alwaies necessary to accompany the names of illustrious persons
with all the Elogies they merit Surely the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews naming Timothy whose praise and great advantages in the work of the ministry and in all vertue every one sufficiently knows calls him simply his brother Timothy The other on whose behalf he salutes the Colossians is Demas In the Epistle to Philemon written at the same time with this and in which he maketh mention or most of the persons here named he placeth Demas with Mark and Aristarchus and St. Luke among his fellow-labourers whence it appears that he was a Minister of the word of GOD of the order of those who served for helpers to the Apostles and are stiled Evangelists But after he had for a space ran well after he had appeared with praise among the lights of the Church alas he lost in the end this fair crown of glory St. Paul who vouchsafed to give his name such an honourable rank in two places of his Epistles in a third tells this lamentable story Demas saith he hath forsaken me having lov'd this present world 2 Tim. 4.10 and is departed unto Thessalonica From this doleful example let us all learn Dear Brethren and particularly such of us as GOD hath called to the holy Ministry to stand on our guard and to mortifie in our selves worldly lusts as avarice the love of life and pleasures ambition and such like passions which ruined Demas And if the Dragon cast down some of the stars that shined in the heaven of our Churches if the flesh and the earth the food and the fulness of Egypt and the false grandeurs of Chaldea cause them unworthily to quit the design and the hopes of mystical Canaan let us not be scandalized at it We are not better then the Apostles If all the light of their wisdom and miracles could not keep Demas from becoming bankrupt of the truth we ought not to think it strange if there happen to be among us some whom belly and vanity do precipitate into the like fault notwithstanding the clearness and evidence of our holy doctrine But it is time to pass into the second part of our Text in which the Apostle orders the Colossians three things first to salute those of Laodicea on his behalf secondly to communicate this Epistle of his to them and thirdly to advertise Archippus of his duty Salute saith he the brethren that is the Christians which are at Laodicea and Nymphas and the Church which is in his house This Nymphas dwelt either in the City of Laodicea it self or in the Countrey near it as some in my opinion do without necessity suspect The Apostle names him in particular because doubtless he was one of the most considerable persons of the flock at Laodicea and St. Paul's affirming that he had a Church in his house doth sufficiently testifie the zeal of his piety This Church was not a place in his house where the Assemblies for religious exercises were for the Scripture never useth the word Church in this sense which is now common among Christians but it is his houshold and the persons whereof it consisted who all made profession of Christianity with him and were confirmed and edified therein by his instructions and good examples Whence appears the vanity of the pretension of those at Rome who acknowledge no Church to be but which braves it in the world and carries with it the pomp of multitude and prosperity The Church of JESUS CHRIST is found where ever He is known and served and adored according to His Gospel within the enclosure of the walls of an house in the very caverns of mountains and coverts of the wilderness whither the Holy Spirit expresly foretelleth us that the Spouse of the Lamb shall be sometimes constrained to retire The second order which the Apostle gives the Colossians is considerable When this Epistle saith he hath been read among you cause that it be also read in the Church of the Laodiceans and read ye also the Epistle from Laodicea First his willing that this Epistle of his be publickly read in the assemblies of these two Churches doth shew us that the Scriptures of GOD were given us to the end all the people of CHRIST Clerks and Laicks small and great should hear and read them and not to be put into the hands of one certain sort of persons only as if this treasure did belong to none but them And hence appears the abuse of those who read the Scriptures to their people but in a language they understand not which is as bad yea in my opinion worse then if they read them not at all For not to read them is simply to bereave the people of the profit they might make of them whereas to read them in an unknown tongue is not only to deprive them of their edification but moreover to mock them and no less offend GOD by perverting His word in such a manner from its due tâ—e and end What shall I say of their outrage who accuse these Divine books of ambiguity of obscurity of seeming contradictions and errours Who say that the reading of them is dangerous and more apt to corrupt and embroil the faithful then to instruct or edifie them O holy Apostle why didst thou put so dangerous a book into our hands a book full of thorns and void of fruit Why didst thou order them to read it in their assembly to impart it unto neighbouring Churches and enjoyn them to read it also Why didst thou not fear the infecting the Spirits of thine innocent Disciples and the insnaring of them in some heresie by the darkness of thy riddles or the sowing of some disorder in their hearts by the ambiguity of thine expressions Dear Brethren the Apostle answers that his Gospel is clear that it is not covered but to unstable spirits and such as are engaged in some evil passion that this Epistle is not any seed of errour but a remedy against seduction a vessel full not of poysons but of preservatives and antidotes But I perceive what the matter is The Scriptures seem to these Gentlemen dangerous because saying nothing of their Pope nor of their Mass nor of the worship of their Saints and Images nor of their Purgatory and such other points nay saying many things which are evidently contrary unto them they easily induce those that read them with respect to beleeve that these doctrines have been invented by men and were never taught by JESUS CHRIST and His Apostles This book troubles them because they find not their reckoning in it it is obscure because what they love do's not there appear It is ambiguous because it pronounceth nothing clearly or expresly for the opinions which they are resolved never to forsake Furthermore this imparting of St. Paul's Epistle unto the Laodiceans unto which the Colossians were obliged by his order shews us that there ought to be an holy and charitable commerce between the Churches of JESUS CHRIST in reference to spiritual things
flesh that is to say of the flesh of His CHRIST by His death There is no one of these words but is of very great weight First mentioning here the body of our LORD he intimateth to us the mysterie of His Incarnation As if he had said that GOD loved us to such a degree as He would have His own Son become man to re-unite and reconcile us with Himself He would have this Divine person whose essence is spiritual and infinite assume a visible and finite body He shews us also by this word the sacrifice by which the wrath of GOD was appeased and our crimes expiated For it is properly for this that the Son of GOD had a body as the Apostle teacheth us when opposing this body of the LORD to sacrifices of living creatures that were unprofitable and incapable of satisfying the Justice of the Father he brings Him in saying Sacrifice and burnt-offering thou wouldst not have Heb. 10.5 10. but a body hast thou prepared me and adjoyneth that it is by the once offering up of this body we have been sanctified But the Apostle doth not say simply the body of CHRIST he addeth the body of His flesh that is according to the stile of the Hebrews His fleshy body His body of flesh At first blush you may seem that this addition is needless and to no purpose But it 's much otherwise For in the language of Scripture every Body is not flesh It gives this name only to an infirm a passible and mortal body He means therefore that the LORD to reconcile us not only assumed a body which yet is very marvelous but that He took a feeble and mortal body a body sustaining it self by meat and drink a body like ours and subject to all their meannesses and infirmities A consideration that as you see exceedingly heightens both the excellency of His love towards us and the value of the means by which He reconciled us it so being that the King of glory who is the Author and Mediator of this work vested Himself with poor Flesh to compass His design And this is the reason why the sacred writers so often use this word to signifie our LORD's humane nature as when they say 1 Tim. 3. Joh. 2. Heb. 2.14 that GOD was manifested in the flesh that the word was made flesh that the Son did partake of flesh and blood Indeed this qualification of the body of CHRIST was necessary for the expiating of our sins since this could not be effected but by sufferings of which only a fleshy body is capable Whence it comes that in the sixth Chapter of St. John where Himself speaketh of the vertue He hath to quicken us He also useth these very words saying that His flesh is meat indeed and His blood drink indeed and that He will give His flesh for the life of the world This word is the cause that I understand this passage of the natural body of CHRIST and not of His mystical body to which it seems some do refer it I acknowledge that the LORD receiveth into the union of His mystical body that is of His Church all those that applying to themselves the promises of His Gospel by Faith are effectually reconciled to GOD. Yet this is not the body the Apostle meaneth here since the body he speaks of is the body of the Flesh of the LORD which cannot be affirmed of His mystical body His saying therefore that GOD hath reconciled us in His body must be taken as if he had said by His body For as we have often informed you 't is ordinary in the stile of Scripture to put in for by And hence appears how extravagant the imagination of some ancient hereticks was who did dogmatize that JESUS CHRIST had but a vain and false appearance of a body and not a real solid and true body as also the errour of those who confessed He had a true body but held it to be celestial and of a quite other matter and substance than ours are The Apostle confounds these foolish phancies by terming the body of our LORD the body of His flesh In fine having said that we were reconciled by the body of His Flesh the Apostle addeth in the last place by His death It was not enough oh faithful brethren that the King of glory the Prince of life assumed to Himself a body and even a body of flesh vile and infirm as yours To reconcile you unto GOD it was necessary He should dye His flesh would have profited you nothing if it had not suffered that death which you deserved But of this death of the LORD and of its necessity and of its efficacy we have spoken largely upon the Texts foregoing Here we will only remark two things before we go further The first is that CHRIST did satisfie the Justice of His Father for us since it is by His death that He reconciled us For except this be asserted it is evident His death will have contributed nothing to our reconciliation in respect of that he would have dyed for nought Grant that there was need He should dye for the confirming of His doctrine and to give us an example of patience though to say true this reason if there were no other seemeth not so necessary that it should have obliged the Son of GOD to dye Yet still after this account His death will have contributed nothing to our reconciliation with the Father Him His own mercy alone and not any consideration of this death would have appeased towards us And nevertheless the Apostle saith expresly we were reconciled by that death which the LORD suffered in the body of His flesh Sure then it must be acknowledged that it quenced the wrath of the Father that is to say satisfied His justice for us The other particular which I would remark here is that the body of the LORD made propitiation of our sins only as it was infirm flesh that suffered death Every one confesseth that now He dyeth no more yea that He is invested with a soveraign glory having for ever put off the infirmity and mortality of the flesh Certainly then it is vainly and without reason that some do imagine His body is offered still to this day for the reconciling of sinners unto GOD. It 's by death Rom 6.9 that He hath reconciled us saith St. Paul And being now raised from the dead He dyeth no more saith he elsewhere But I come to the third and last article of our Text wherein the Apostle saith that it is to make us holy and without spot and unreprovable before Him that GOD hath reconciled us by the death of His Son It is strictly in the original to present us or to make us stand and appear before Him holy without spot and unreprovable which hath given occasion to some of our Expositors to referr these words also to our Justification before GOD as if the Apostle meant that He made our peace and abolished the
here below do put off the habitudes of vices and put on those of Christian vertues by reason whereof they are justly called holy though through infirmity there slip from them somtimes some actions contrary thereto They are washed from those foule and ugly spots that yerwhile deformed their whole life and an adversary connot note or reprehend ought in their deportments that is contrary to the profession they make of the Covenant of grace As for what the Apostle addeth that they are such before GOD it is only to signifie that their piety is true and real not feigned nor dissembled that it is not a mask which cheateth the eyes of men but a disposition of heart which GOD discerns within them as men do behold the evidences of it without upon them in the same sense that St. Luke said of Zachary and Elizabeth that they were both righteous before GOD. Lo there Beloved Brethren what we had to say to you upon this Text. The rigour of the season obliging us to conclude this action I will only touch at in a word or two the uses we should deduce from it for our edification referring it to your diligence to dilate each of them and above all to reduce them carefully into practice Remember first the miserable estate wherein you were before GOD prevented you by His grace and think that it is to you also the Apostle saith ye were somtime estranged and enemies in your understandings in wicked works For our ancesters before the Sun of Righteousness shone on these countries were in such a condition as the Colossians or rather a worse Our Fathers were Hittites and our Mothers Amorites living in the darkness of Paganism serving an Hesus and a Belenus and a Tautates and I know not what other vanities sacrificing men to them and weltring in the filth of the most infamous vices Being by the great benignity of GOD drawn out of this gulf we were yet cast into another in which under other names we committed the like crimes adoring an insensible and inanimate thing and bending down our selves before wood and stone and dumb images and giving to a mortal man the glorious names which belong only to the Son of GOD being corrupted both in our thoughts and in our deeds These faults were so much worse than the former by how much less ignorant we were of our master's will than we had yerst been Admire next the goodness of GOD who seeing us in this abyss though our ingratitude and rebellion merited His heaviest avenges yet had pity on us and visiting us in His infinite mercies hath reconciled us by the body of the flesh of His Son through His death He hath sent to us Epaphras's as He did to the Colossians Ministers of His word who have made the voice of Paul and of the other Apostles to resound among us He hath purified us and washed all our filth in the blood of His CHRIST He hath bedewed our hearts therewith and abolished the enmity and extinguished the hatred and re-united us unto Himself communicating to us the Divine body of His Son nailed for us to the Cross the source of our salvation and the treasury of all the good things of Heaven His death hath been our life and His malediction our benediction Acknowledge we this great goodness of our GOD with a profound gratitude Give we Him the glory of all the good that may be in us If there be any light in our understandings any peace in our consciences any pureness in our affections any rectitude in our ways bless we the kindness of this Soveraign LORD who hath vouchsafed to illuminate us to reconcile us and to cleanse us Without this favourable beaming forth of His grace we should be yet strangers and enemies in the bondage and darkness of Aegypt or under the yoke and in the captivity of Chaldea Make we use now of the benefits He hath conferred on us Let us abide fastned to Him so as nothing may set us at distance from Him Love we Him fervently and serve Him diligently lest we become yet again His enemies Let those understandings which were somtime the heads of that wicked war we made against Him religiously maintain that holy and happy Peace which He hath vouchsafed to conclude with us Banish we thence all thoughts of rebellion Have we still before our eyes that sacred flesh which the King of glory was clothed with for us the blood wherewith He purchased our peace the death He underwent to bring us in again with GOD His Father Let us not prophane a blessing that cost Him so dear Imitate we also His goodness Treat we our neighbours as He treated us If they avoid us let us seek to them For we also were enemies to GOD and warred against Him when He called us to the communion of His grace Above all remember we that the end of all the miracles GOD hath done on our behalf is to make us holy without spot and unreprovable before Him Let not us betray so admirable and so reasonable a design Let us not frustrate so good and so merciful a LORD of His intentions Dear Brethren I might here make large complaint of the profaneness of some of the loosness of others and of the faltrings of us all who labour after nothing less than that high and accomplished sanctification to which GOD calleth us but I had much rather end with entreaties than with complaints and do conjure you in the Name of the LORD and by your own salvation that you would judge your selves and that renouncing all the faults of the time past all the impieties and lusts of this world ye would live henceforth soberly righteously and godly and keep your selves holy pure and unreprovable to the glory of GOD the edification of men and your own salvation Amen THE XII SERMON COL I. Ver. XXIII Vers XXIII If indeed ye continue in the faith founded and firm and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel which ye have heard and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven whereof I Paul have been made a Minister OUr LORD JESUS CHRIST in the Gospel according to S. Matthew telleth us of two sorts of people which hear His Doctrine and frequent His School the one they that put His words in practise that is those who embracing the Gospel with a true and lively faith do render Him the obedience He demandeth of them the other they that hear but put not in practice what He saith unto them that is those who giving but little or no belief to His Divine truth take no care to perform what He commands but content themselves with a vain outside Profession and are not inwardly affected and changed as they ought to be He compares the former to a wise and prudent man that hath built his house upon a Rock and when the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house it fell not for