the New Testament were then but fore-told and promised not fully and clearly revealed as now by their accomplishment they have been by means whereof it was meet that during all that time they should be exercis'd in the observing of these typical rites and held in and kept under the Pedagogie of Moses until the fulness of time according to the Apostle's Doctrine in the Epistle to the Galatians Now that JESUS CHRIST hath openly exhibited the very body of truth and fully brought to light all the causes and motives of true sanctification these exercises of the Church's infancy are no longer seasonable and they that still stick to them are no less ridiculous than he that would still keep up the centries of a vault or the models of a building even after the Fabrick is finish'd and brought to its perfection or retain under a School-master's Ferule and in the restraints of childhood a man grown up and come to ripeness of years This is that we had to say for the exposition of this Text. It remaineth for a conclusion that we extract those instructions and consolations which if we meditate on it attentively it will afford us First Since the Apostle assureth us that we are compleat in CHRIST you see how vain those mens pretensions are who set forth certain rules of perfection as they call them beyond the Gospel Let us content our selves with our LORD's fulness and seek our perfection in him alone And instead of amusing our selves about the inventions of men embrace and practise CHRIST's Discipline advancing daily towards the utmost degree of perfectness For we may not flatter our selves with an imagination that a man may nevertheless appertain to him though he lead an wholly vicious and corrupt life S. Paul here protesteth plainly to us that all such as are in him are made compleat Whence it necessarily follows that such as are not compleat are without his communion and by consequence should not promise themselves any share in his salvation it being prepared for those only that are in him If this Doctrine do trouble us let us impute it to our vices and our loosness and taking once this truth to heart with all our might endeavour after that perfection which is in JESUS CHRIST accounting that without it we cannot possess either his grace in this world or his glory in the world to come I well know that to speak absolutely no one is perfect and that if we compare our condition on earth with that in heaven all our perfections are but weaknesses Yet it is true that JESUS CHRIST doth even in this life in some sense compleat his faithful ones and this perfection which he giveth them is not a vain name or an imagination It 's a thing and a most real truth it is a piety and charity sincere and free and without hypocrisie which though it sometimes fail doth notwithstanding produce true fruits and works quite different from those of Worldlings and Hypocrites according to what our LORD said even that if your righteousness do not exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven Object not that you are yet on earth and that perfection is not to be found but in heaven and that to live as an Angel one should be without a body It is not the perfection of Heaven that we demand of you The LORD will not reject you for having not had in this life the transcendent brightness of the next But though a child be not obliged to conduct his life with as much prudence and reason as a man of years it doth not follow that he hath licence to live without rule and in the debanches and disorders of slaves Every Age hath its bounds and its measures and its perfection Our childhood here below must not be without discipline under the pretence that it is not come to full growth Christians I complain not that there are defects in your knowledg and practice which have no place in Heaven but that there are in you vices which ought to have no place on earth I blame you not for that there is a great difference between you and Angels but that there is none between you and worldly men I require not what is above the strength of your age but what is worthy of your profession and doth not at all exceed your light I beseech you only to labour as much for JESUS CHRIST as the children of this generation do for the interests of their lusts This doth not exceed the capacity of our nature since you see what the servants of sin do and it s necessarily your duty except you imagine that we owe less to JESUS CHRIST than Worldlings do to their foolish and vain passions The first piece of that compleatness which we have in him is this Divine Circumcision which is not made with hand but by the efficacy of his Spirit Without it we can have neither place in the communion of his people nor right to his Inheritance It 's a Circumcision of which we may truly say that every soul that shall not have receiv'd it shall be cut off from his people The Apostle shews us wherein it consists to wit in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh JESUS CHRIST hath put the sword in our hand that 's necessary to cut away this wretched flesh namely his sacred word wherein he discovers the horridness of sin and infernal venom of vices and the vanity and iniquity of all the lusts of the flesh He hath shew'd us the perdition which they that serve it fall into and hath put it to death on his Cross and buried it in his Sepulcher He hath spread before our eyes the wonders of GOD's love and the eternity of the Kingdom appointed for faithful servants He hath given us rules and examples of this part of our sanctification in his Gospel and in his life and offereth us the lights and consolations of his Spirit to lead us in this work Grasp we then this Divine Knife of his Gospel Thrust it hardily in to our hearts and cut out thence all the impurity of the vices that are there Let us rid our selves of them and cast them behind us Exterminate all the productions of the flesh as execrable things Leave not one of them in our selves Having subdued Avarice combat Ambition Pluck out Luxury and all its passions from our inward parts Root up Hatred and Wrath and Cruelty and spare the life of none of these Monsters Let us not rest until we have cleansed our hearts of all this cursed brood For it is not enough to have cut off some of them One sole Enemy abiding in our bosome is able to destroy us The body of the sins of the flesh must be put off saith the Apostle and not one or two of its sins only I confess the labour is hard but it is necessary and that at all times for it is the
the LORD JESUS giving thanks by Him unto our GOD and Father DEAR Brethren The love that the LORD JESUS hath born us is so great and the benefits He hath conferr'd upon us are so various and so precious that we are evidently obliged to give our selves entirely to Him and we cannot substract from Him without ingratitude any part of what we are or have He hath laid down His life for us It is just therefore that we again do consecrate ours unto Him He hath redeemed us at the price of His blood and by this admirable ransom deliver'd from death and hell not only our Souls but also our Bodies and our whole Nature We are therefore wholly His and have no more any other Master but Him neither is there any justice in the world but will adjudge Him the propriety and possession of what costeth Him so dear But though of right we be his Vassals yet it hath pleas'd His love that we should belong to Him under another much more glorious title For He hath made us His brethren having obtained of His Father that He should adopt us for His children and accumulated this grace with all the highest favours that creatures can be exalted to I mean He hath made us partakers of His inheritance and communicated to us His Nature and His Spirit and crowned us with His immortality and with His glory Though he had not shed His Blood for us as He did who seeth not but that this His great and divine liberality should have purchas'd Him all the life and being and motion we can have and that to divert any part of it from His service would be a robbing of Him and a bereaving Him with abominable Sacriledge of a thing belonging to Him so legitimatly and for many so just and weighty reasons If we be not the most unjust and ingrateful persons in the world we ought all to have such sentiments and consequently look upon our nature and our life as things no longer ours but JESUS CHRIST's and dispose of them not after our own phansie and for our own interest but at His pleasure and for His glory And as you see that the servants of a Prince above all those whom he hath particularly obliged and favoured do set up his arms through all their houses and adorn their Halls and Chambers with his Picture and have his praises alwayes in their mouth and fill up their whole life with his name and glory so should we do to JESUS CHRIST and with so much the more zeal for that He is a LORD infinitely more rich more clement more liberal and more beneficent than any Monarch of the Earth Let our Souls and Bodies therefore bear His badges let His glory appear exalted in all our actions let the words of our mouths be dedicated to Him and our whole lives full of His Name breathing throughout nothing but His honour and service without ever swerving from His Will from His interests This Beloved Brethren is the Lesson which the Apostle S. Paul now gives us in the words that you have heard And whatever ye do saith he whether in word or work do it all in the name of the LORD JESVS giving thanks by Him unto our GOD and Father By these words he concludeth that excellent exhortation which he makes to all Christians in general of what sex or age or condition soever He began it at the first Verse of this Chapter and continues it on to our Text pointing out in it briefly but divinely as you have heard in the precedent exercises our principal duties on one hand the mortifying of the flesh with its lusts as fornication covetousness wrath and the like on the other hand the studying and exercising of all Christian vertues as humility kindness patience gentleness charity and peace To all these he addeth our knowing and continual meditating of the Word of GOD with Psalms and spiritual Hymns And here it was we made stay in our last action upon this Subject Now that he might not stand to treat severally of all a Christians other duties which would be prolix and even infinite and a Discourse of too great extent for an Epistle before he passeth to that particular exhortation which he addresseth in the following Verses to some certain ranks of believers as to Married persons to Fathers to Children to Servants and Masters he closeth up his first matter with the precept he here gives us A precept verily excellent and well worthy to Crown his exhortation since it comprehends in few words all the duties of a Christian both those which the Apostle hath expresly pointed at and those which his design of brevity caused him to pass over in silence without speaking of them by name To the end we may give you an exposition of it we will endeavour by the grace of our LORD to explain one after another the two parts that offer themselves in it First that whatever we do either in word or work we do it all in the name of the LORD JESVS Secondly that we give thanks by Him to our GOD and Father When the Apostle pronounceth that all we do in work or word be done in the name of the LORD JESVS he clearly gives Him our whole life For these two sorts of things which he subjecteth unto Him words and works do comprehend all the other parts of our life it being evident that nothing issues from us but what may be referred to the one or the other of these two kinds They are either words or works Words are the fruits of our mouths works are the effects or actions of our other parts and faculties I acknowledge that beside this our spirit also does act within us when it knows or considers things and desireth or rejecteth them But besides that these internal actions might be put into the rank of our works by extending the word a little beyond its ordinary signification as in effect some interpreters do give it such a meaning here beside this I say it is evident that most of the conceptions and affections and resolutions of the Soul do refer to words and external works as being the principles and motives of them For it is not possible that our words and works should be in the name of our LORD and Saviour except our understandings and wills do so address them and it 's properly this action of the Soul the Apostle signifies when he orders that we do in the name of CHRIST all we do The tongue indeed pronounceth the words and the hands and other parts of our bodies do execute those actions of ours which are called works But it 's the Spirit that moves them all and that directeth and guideth on their functions to that end or design it hath proposed to its self and draws them from such motives as it hath conceiv'd and form'd within its self And it is properly upon this that the difference of mens actions doth depend It 's this Character that gives them
degree of society either civil or domestick or religious they be placed And though this part being once well comprehended hath in it a great and almost sufficient light to direct and govern all the rest yet they forbear not upon it to descend unto the particular duties of each of those estates and conditions which the faithful live in in humane society Thus the Apostle S. Paul hath done in this Epistle for after having formed us all in general unto piety and sanctity and charity which belong to all Christians equally as you have heard in the precedent exercises he now addresseth himself in particular to each of those three orders of which an houshold is composed the first whereof is the Husband and the Wife the second the Father and the Children the third Master and Servants giving each of them a good lesson for their conduct in the condition to which GOD hath called them Elsewhere he regulateth the duties of Subjects in reference to the civil Powers under which they live of the faithful in reference to their Pastors and reciprocally of Pastors in reference to their flocks not omitting Deacons the other part of Ecclesiastick Ministry and this not in one place alone but many In consideration hereof before we proceed any further permit me I beseech you to make here at the entrance one general reflection upon this the Holy Apostles way of treating thus Whence comes it that having been so careful to instruct and to direct in particular each of those different ranks of persons which then were and still are in the Church they never drop'd one word of the duties of three kinds of conditions in which now a dayes Rome makes the main and in a manner the all of the Christian Commonweal to consist I mean the Pope Sacrificers or Priests and Monks The Apostles do instruct the lowest Masters how they ought to treat their attendants and the simplest Presbyters or Bishops that is Pastors how they ought to feed their flocks They never tell the Pope in what manner he ought to deport himself in that great government of all Christendom which as is said hath been given him of GOD. The Apostles do advertise the most abject slaves of the servitude they owe their Masters and every flock of the diference and respect it owes its Pastors They never speak a word either to single believers or their guides of that infinite subjection which they are obliged to profess unto the Pope or of kiâ—â—ing his feet or of submitting the conscience or any other such like thing The Apostles do exactly inform Bishops or Pastors of the duties of their charge of preaching exhorting instructing of watching of correcting of censuring of excluding the scandalous from communion They never order any Sacrificers to offer a propitiatory hoast unto GOD for the sins of quick and dead nor tell them of the preparations ceremonies and observances necessary thereto nor of purifying by means of an auricular confession the consciences of such as are to participate of such a sacrifice nor of the precautions and subtilties that are necessary for the right administration of it In fine the Apostles verity vouchsafe to take the pains to enter into Families and there regulate the demeanour of Husbands and Wives of Virgins and Widows of Fathers and Children of Masters and Servants Why say they nothing unto Monks neither to the solitary as Hermits and Anachorets nor to those that live associated in separated dwellings Why do they not somewhere instruct the Guardians the Abbots the Superiours and Generals of these orders Why do they not exhort their inferiors to yield them a blind obedience Why say they nothing of their three vows and of the means of well observing them And why give they no instructions to Religious women who imitating the zeal of men shut themselves up in Convents But what say I that they no where regulate the carriage and particular duties of these three sorts of conditions More than so they make no mention of them at all neither expresly nor implicitly And if you read the Books of the New Testament you will find that there is no more speech in them of the Pope and the Sacrificers and the Monks of Rome than of the Bramines of India or the Bonzians of Japan or the Muphti of the Musulmen Whence comes so strange a silence so universal an obliviousness Is it that the thing was not worthy of the Apostles care and quill But how can that be imagin'd since if you believe those of Rome it 's upon these three orders that Christianity depends For as to the Pope he is the head of the Church and exerciseth so necessary an imperial power that out of his communion there is no salvation And as for Priests or Sacrificers it 's they alone that purifie the souls of men both by the absolution they give those whom they confess and by that Deity which they deliver unto such as they communicate Lastly as for Monks their order is the state of perfection They are the Angels of the earth the glory and the rampart of the Church the sole patterns of Evangelick piety and sanctity wherefore they call their fraternities Religions and disdaining their old name of Monks each sex of them stiles themselves Religious as if the piety of other Christians did not deserve to be called Religion in comparison of theirs Whence comes it then that the Apostles have so forgotten these three sorts of people which are as highly or more necessary in the Church than the four elements in the world Dear Brethren you plainly see the reason and if passion did not blind our adversaries they might see it too as well as we The Apostles have said nothing to these three sorts of people because there were none such among Christians in their time Had there been then a Pope and Sacrificers in the Church the Apostles without doubt would have told them their duty as well as Bishops and Elders that is Pastors And if there had been Monks and Religiouses they would undoubtedly have spoken unto them as well as unto men and women that live in wedlock Since they did it not be we certainly assured that neither of these three plants was sown or set by JESUS CHRIST or His Apostles but they have all sprung up since their dayes partly from the imprudence partly from the superstition and corruptness of men who also affording them cultivation have raised them by little and little to that prodigious greatness which now for divers ages they have had And this be spoken at the entrance upon occasion of the care the Apostles in general had to form and regulate the duties of the divers conditions of persons which are found in the Church As for S. Paul's particular in this place he speaks here first unto Husbands and Wives next unto Fathers and Children and last of all unto Masters and Servants following therein the natural order of the things themselves For if you consider the
the only rule of our lives so as we do nothing but what is pleasing unto Him This is the soveraign reason of our duties not to dare any thing that displeaseth Him nor neglect any thing that 's agreeable to Him This rule is of very vast and perpetual use in all the parts of life And omitting others for this time I beseech you only to apply it to the pastimes to the balls and banquettings and comedies of the present season Each of you consult your own conscience hereupon if it be informed by the word of GOD and ask it if these exercises of the world be verily pleasing unto GOD and whether running after them with the multitude you can assure your self you do therein a thing that delighteth him If it answer that there is no reason to believe it but very much to the contrary in the name of GOD my Brethren follow this resolution of your own conscience Abstain from these works of darkness Spare the Church Give it no scandal Expose not its name and its profession to the scorn of those without by engaging them in the disorders of the present generation Let your manners have no less purity in them than your faith and let there be a difference between the very divertisements of children of GOD and of others Give to the poor what is cast away usually in such follies and you shall acquire a firm and solid consolation which shall never be followed with repentance and regret but go on still increasing untill it be changed into that eternal and incomprehensible joy which is kept for us in the Heavens by our LORD JESUS CHRIST to whom as to the Father and the Holy Spirit the true and only Eternal GOD be Honour Praise and Glory unto ages of ages Amen THE FORTY FIFTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP III. VER XXII XXIII XXIV XXV And Chap. IV. Ver. I. Verse XXII Servants obey in all things them that are your Masters according to the flesh not serving to the eye as willing to please men but in singleness of heart fearing GOD. XXIII And whatever ye do do it all with courage as unto the LORD and not as unto men XXIV Knowing that ye shall receive of the LORD the reward of the inheritance for ye serve the LORD CHRIST XXV But he that doth unjustly shall receive what he hath unjustly done and there is no regard to the shew of persons CHAP. IV. Verse I. Masters render right and equity to your Servants knowing that ye also have a Master in Heaven IF mankind after the devastation sin hath made hath any thing left it that is laudable and commodious and conducing unto welfare it is without doubt the order of those societies which compose it For this correspondence and this harmony of several persons different in themselves and yet knit together by the mutual offices they do one another and by that common end unto which they direct them is an effect and production of a very perspicacious and exquisite reason and bears such evident marks of it as no one can choose but perceive if he ever so little apply his mind to this consideration The thing is such as made an Heathen sometime say Cicero that that grand and supreme Divinity which governeth the world doth see nothing on earth more agreeable to Him than the bodies of Families and Re-publicks establish'd among men and governed by good equitable laws For as there is nothing not only more unsightly and deformed but also more incommodious than confusion so on the contrary there is nothing that is at once both more beautiful and more beneficial than order For order setting every thing in its place and uniting all together by the co-aptation and combining of particulars does cherish and conserve the whole and by their union frameth up a body which conjoyning in one the forces and perfections of each of them becomes by this means extremely fair and most considerable This is the reason why the Apostles of our LORD and Saviour did carefully discriminate this order from those defects and imperfections which their Master came to correct in the world And whereas their holy discipline doth batter and overthrow and bring to nought all that the unrighteousness and the pride of sin hath rear'd up among us it doth establish and mightily confirm the civil and domestick societies which it found in mankind as so many holy and necessary institutions of GOD our Creator You have heretofore heard with what affection St. Paul recommends to Christians the sacred and inviolable duties of husbands and wives of fathers and children for conserving domestick society in its integrity among us Now that he might leave no disorder at all in it he speaks to Servants and Masters and in this Text discreetly regulates the subjection of the former and the domination of the latter representing to the one and the other of them excellent considerations taken from fundamentals of Gospel-doctrine to sway them to their duty The same namely the subjection of Servants and the superiority of Masters shall be the two points we will treat of if GOD permit in this action observing briefly the particulars they may afford for our common edification and consolation He insisteth most upon the first point which respecteth servants because subjection is bitter and a thing which our nature is loth to accommodate its self unto especially in the condition that servants at that time were For it was not with them as it is now with ours who are persons in reality free and disposing of themselves do only let out their services for a time and upon certain conditions but not devest themselves of the liberty they were born in The servants of the ancients in the Apostle's time and among the nations to whom he wrote were slaves which belonged to their Masters and were theirs by the same kind of property their cattle were They could not dispose of their own persons nor of their children but by the authority and will of their masters The law of servitude was of like nature among the Jews also excepting only that such servants as were of the Hebrew race went out of that condition and were set at liberty when they came to the year of Jubile as is evident by divers places in the books of Moses The Apostle knowing how harsh this condition was unto men took a particular care to sweeten it and to recommend the duties of it to such as Divine Providence had ranked in it least disgust at so strict a subjection and love of liberty should carry them to shake off the yoke and to disturb the order of publick society by their rebellion First he orders them to obey next he prescribeth them the manner of this obedience not serving to the eye as willing to please men and finally in the two last verses of this Chapter he sets before them some considerations taken from the benignity and justice of GOD to incite them unto a faithful discharge of
your children and servants in the same devotion That there may not be a person within your doors but understands and exerciseth himself in this divine liturgie of all Christians Then take heed to acquit your selves in this duty as you ought that is to perform it with fervency attention vigilancy and perseverance to wash your hands in innocence to purifie your souls and bodies for the presenting them unto this supreme and most holy Divinity without offending His sight Ye know what the Prophets say of those whose hands are full of blood even that they are an abomination to the LORD that He is weary to bear them that He abhorreth their devotions and disdaineth their vain oblations that He hides His face from them when they dare stretch out their polluted hands unto Him and will not hear their prayers though they should multiply them to the utmost Wash you saith he make you clean Isa 1.11 seq take away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well seek judgement relieve the oppressed do right to the orphan debate the ease of the widow This Christians is the incense wherewith the LORD would have you persume your offerings of prayer that they may be pleasing to Him Hearken to His voice if you desire He should hear yours Obey the word of His Gospel if you would have Him receive the words of your supplications We complain that we have long prayed in vain But let us not disparage His veracity rather confess we have not prayed as we ought that is with such faith such repentance and amendment of life as necessarily should have accompanied these sacrifices Henceforth then for it is yet time turn ye unto Him with all your heart and lift up pure hands without wrath and doubting and vigorously persevere in this holy exercise with assurance that He will hear you But Dear Brethren among other things which you shall crave of GOD pray Him also for us that He would open us the door of the word to the end we may declare the mysterie of CHRIST and manifest it to you as we ought For if Paul a chosen vessel made and formed immediately by the hand of Heaven consecrated by CHRIST's own voice and fill'd with the treasures of His Spirit in all abundance did notwithstanding require the assistance of the Colossians prayers in the administration of this charge how much more is the succour of yours necessary for us for us I say who in comparison of him are but children We conjure you therefore both by the glory of our common Master and by the interest you have in His work that you never fail to remember us in your sacrifices of prayer but alwaies beseech this supreme LORD to perfect His strength in our weakness to give us a mouth fit to declare His mysteries and to purifie our lips as He sometime did His Prophets and untye our tongue as He did Moses's and fill our souls with that Divine fire which heretofore did in a moment form His Apostles clearing up our minds unto a distinct knowledge of His Gospel wisdom inflaming our hearts with the zeal of His house and cleansing them from the filth of all humane passions Now if the LORD inclined by the ardency and constancy of your prayers do vouchsafe to conferr upon us some small portion of His grace look ye on it as a thing that pertains to you a thing given to your prayer and for your edification Use it and make advantage of it Let it not be said that this great mysterie of CHRIST was declared unto you in vain and that it being manifested to you as it ought ye received it not as you should GOD keep you from such an unhappiness For how weak soever our preaching be it is notwithstanding sufficient My Brethren to render every one inexcusable who shall not have received it with faith neither your ears nor consciences being able to deny but that we declare unto you all the counsel of GOD in His Son JESUS CHRIST Let us all in common beseech Him to deal so graciously with the one and the others of us that all may rightly discharge their duty we speak unto you ye hearken unto us as is meet and that being knit together by a firm and indissoluble Charity we may prosperously advance His work in all sanctity innocence patience and constancy to the glory of His Name the edification of those among whom we live and our own salvation Amen THE FORTY SEVENTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. IV. VER V VI. Verse V. Walk wisely towards those that are without redeeming the time VI. Let your speech be alwaies with grace throughly tempered with salt that ye may koow how ye ought to answer every one DEAR Brethren while the Church of CHRIST is here on earth it 's condition is to sojourn for the most part amid people of another profession For though the merit of our LORD and Saviour be sufficient to bring all mankind unto the communion of GOD and though his salvation be tender'd by His own will and order to all those that have His Gospel preached to them yet so horrible is the obduration and blindness of our nature that the most of men abide out of the covenant of GOD wickedly and foolishly rejecting the great honour He offers them Divers whole Nations there are that irritated with the same fury have utterly shut the door against JESUS CHRIST refusing to suffer any of His servants within their coasts And even of those in which He hath some reception it is commonly but a little part that doth acknowledge Him the greatest and most considerable in the world persecuting Him or deriding His mysteries Not so much as private families but the Gospel sometimes makes this partition in The same roof often covereth persons of different religions 'T is a division which JESUS CHRIST hath raised in the world not that He positively willed and design'd it or that such is the nature of His doctrine neither of those doth properly tend but to unite all things and recombine Earth with Heaven in an eternal peace but it grows from the naughty and the cruel disposition of men who despise His counsel and disdain their own salvation Once by this means it com's to pass that the Kingdom of CHRIST remains as it were inlock'd with forcin States and His faithful ones mingled among persons of a contrary religion with whom this commune habitation doth of necessity oblige them to have much commerce This is the reason why the Apostle having regulated afore most of the duties of our life do's here in a few words point out in what manner we should converse with these aliens as to faith among whom we are dispersed And this advertisement was at that time the more necessary for that Christians in those beginnings which were as the nativity of the Church saw themselves environed on all sides with Jews and Pagans the two religions which then took
the same infirmities and to the same necessity of dying and indeed they dyed after they had lived again awhile Their death was rather deferred than abolished Their bodies did corrupt and in the end return to that dust from which they were preserved for some years But with JESUS CHRIST it is not so He in coming forth from the dead retook not the life He had quitted that is the life of the first Adam that infirm natural and earthly life a life still subject unto death He left it in the Sepulchre where it must remain as in eternal oblivion He put on a new life and nature such as is spiritual and celestial as the Apostle elsewhere termeth it a life wholly full of strength and glory that is not subject either to the use of meat or sleep not subject to dolour or death a life appropriate to the second world and not to the first a nature peculiar to the future age not to the present Accordingly you see that being vested therewith he remained not on the earth This is the old Adam's element the habitation of corruption and death But having only sojourned there fourty days so long as was needful to assure His Apostles of the truth of His resurrection and to shew them in His own person the first-fruits of the mystical Canaan He ascended up above the Heavens to the true element of the new man and the Sanctuary of eternity Conclude we then that He is truly the beginning and the first-born from the dead since He is the first of all the dead that was born and raised again in incorruption But these titles signifie yet another thing namely that it shall be He who shall raise again all the members of the Church in like glory that He is the master and the Lord of the dead for the investing them one day in their order with a nature resembling His own according to what St. Paul elsewhere saith that He will make our vile body Phil. 3. like unto His own glorious body For He would not be the first-born from the dead if He did not communicate the priviledge and the possession of this second birth to all His brethren that is to say all the faithful The Apostle adds to the end that He might have the first place in all things Those that are well versed in the reading of these divine Books do know that the word to the end that is often put in them for so as that or in such a sort as even to signifie the event and consequence of an action rather than the intention or design of the agent I account that it must be so taken in this place For the intention of our LORD in being made Head of the Church and the beginning of the new life was rather to Save us and glorifie His Father then to obtain unto Himself the first place in all things Yet true it is that such was the success of this His undertaking as He actually hath the first place in all things For there are but two sorts of things one of those that pertâ—â—â—â—o the first world and its creation the other of those that are of the second world and of the regeneration CHRIST therefore being already the Master and Creator of the former it is evident that having been also established Head of the Church which is the State that consists of the latter and the beginning and first-born of the resurrection of the dead He doth obtain by this means the first place in all things that is to say both in those of the first creation whereof He is the author and in those of the second whereof He is the Head This is the conclusion which the Apostle deduceth from his whole precedent discourse there he said that the LORD is the image of the invisible GOD the first-born of every creature the Creator of the Elements and the Angels and moreover the Head of the Church the principle and the first-fruits of the new Creation now he addeth so as He hath the first place in all things This being as seems to me from hence clear enough there is no necessity we should make any longer stay upon the exposition of this Text. It remains that to conclude we do briefly touch at the duties to which the doctrine of the Apostle doth oblige us and the comforts which it doth afford us JESUS CHRIST saith he is the head of the body of the Church These few words if we meditate them as we ought will teach us all that we owe both of obedience to the LORD and of charity to our brethren and of care and respect to our selves As for the LORD since He hath vouchsafed to become our Head it is evident we ought to honour Him with utmost devotion and submit all the actions of our life to His conduct See with what promptitude the body obeyeth the head and with how absolute a submission it follows all its movings The body neither stirreth nor resteth but as the head ordereth It depends entirely on its guidance and never crosseth its orders or resisteth its commands The head hath no sooner conceived a thing but the spirits forthwith present themselves at the place it desireth and each of the members employeth all the vigor and strength it hath to execute its will This is an image of that obedience which the LORD our mystical Head demands of us and this is that which the Apostle meaneth elsewhere Eph. 5.24 when he saith that the Church is subject to Him It 's in vain therefore that they boast themselves to be the Church who do contrary to what the LORD ordaineth who are subject to another beside Him and instead of His orders follow the will of a mortal man owning another head adoring another oracle keeping what He hath forbidden Blessed be His Name for that He hath granted us to disclaim their errour and to hang all our religion upon His sacred lips believing only that truth which He hath revealed to us in His Gospel and engraven in our hearts by His Spirit But what will it profit us to follow Him in our faith if we resist in our manners How can he avouch for His Church a body subject to Mammon to pleasure to ambition and other idols of the world a body wholly bended down to the earth whereas this divine Head is lift up above the Heavens Dear Brethren let us not deceive our selves We cannot be the Church of CHRIST except we be His body and we cannot be His body except we depend absolutely on Him except we cast out of our members the spirit of the Flesh and of the world and take in His to follow it's light and obey it's movings Henceforth then let us so compose our life that it do not contradict our profession Let the LORD JESUS be truly our Head let Him be still above us let Him preside in all our designs let Him conduct our steps and govern all our motions and inspire into us
render every man perfect in CHRIST JESVS For the first when he saith that he preacheth JESVS CHRIST his meaning is not simply that he speaks of JESUS CHRIST to those whom he instructed There never was an heretick but made some mention of Him and for the colouring of his dreams did mingle with them somewhat of the mystery of JESUS CHRIST even Mahomet himself the desperatest of all impostours that ever debauched men from the Gospel doth nevertheless speak of Him with honour and acknowledge in gross the truth of the call and doctrine of JESUS But the Apostle signiâ—ies that he declareth JESUS CHRIST alone preacheth none but Him that He is the only subject of His preaching and the filling up of his teachings according to the profession he expresly maketh elsewhere that he determined to know nothing among them 1 Cor. 2.2 whom he taught but JESUS CHRIST crucified His Epistles in which he hath left us a lively and a true picture of his preaching do sufficiently justifie his speech For such as have read those divine writings see that they are filled from the beginning to the end with JESUS CHRIST alone This adorable name shines out every where in them and there is no tract or chapter but it is engraven on it There are scarce two periods found together in which it doth not appear If he be to teach he proposeth no other secrets but those of the nature or the offices or the actions or the passions or the promises of JESUS CHRIST If he must combat error he wields no other weapons in it but the Cross of JESUS CHRIST If he aim to clear the obscurities either of nature or of the Law JESUS CHRIST alone is the light he useth to dissipate all kind of shadows and clouds From Him he fetcheth consolation for souls cast down either by the sense of their sins or by the heaviness of affliction In Him he finds all his motives and arguments for our sanctification JESUS CHRIST alone furnisheth him with all that 's necessary to pacifie our consciences to make glad our hearts to raise our hopes to confirm our faith to enflame our charity to inkindle our zeal to stiffen our constancy to encourage our patience to purifie our affections to loosen us from the earth and lift us up to heaven JESUS CHRIST is all his Logick and all his Rhetorick He is the rise of his arguments the magazin of his arms the great motive of his perswasions the soul of all his discourses In the determinations of this holy Doctor you no where meet with either Pope or Mass or devotions to Saints and Angels or Purgatory or auricular confessions or so much as one of those pretended mysteries that fill up the modern Theology He was fully content with JESUS CHRIST He believed it enough to preach Him and that he needed no more either to discharge his own duty or to advance our edification and truly he had reason For what is there I do not only say necessary and useful but any way good or great and excellent which is not in JESUS CHRIST Though other things which are recommended in religion were as true as they are false and as innocent as they are pernicious yet it is evident that in comparison of CHRIST JESUS they are miserably poor and childish In Him alone is found such true solidity as is able to content the soul in Him alone is wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption all the fulness of the Godhead all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge as S. Paul will tell us hereafter In this LORD alone is grace truth and life There is no salvation in any other Acts 4.12 No other name hath been given under Heaven unto men whereby they must be saved And yet alas though this be a truth so clear in it self and so authentically confirmed by the practice of our great Apostle there are people that professing to believe it do for all seek that elsewhere which is to be found in JESUS CHRIST only and having this living and overflowing spring of grace opened to all believers by the loving kindness of the Father yet go digging in the poor Cisterns of the creatures for the water of salvation They acknowledge that the merits of JESUS CHRIST are infinite His righteousness absolutely perfect His grace inexhaustible His power supereminent but they are not content with it however They adjoyn their satisfactions unto His the prayers of Angels and Saints to His intercession and do mingle the sufferings of men with the blood of the Son of GOD. But if the lusts of the world or the false blaze of error or the corrupt inclinations of the flesh do induce them to approve or to bear with so dangerous a mixture let us for our part Dear Brethren whom GOD hath delivered from such prepossessions adore the fulness of JESUS CHRIST Let us content our selves with his richness and never seek any true good any otherwhere than in Him Bless we GOD that from the Pulpits erected among us we hear no name sounded forth but His. Since S. Paul preacheth none but Him it is greatest reason that He alone should take up the mouth of Preachers and the faith of their hearers But the Apostle having declared the subject of His preaching addeth the matter of it We preach CHRIST saith he admonishing and teaching in all wisdom These are the two parts of the office of a good Preacher to wit admonition and instruction The first compriseth all the remonstrances that are made to sinners whether to reprehend their faults or to excite their diligence or to comfort their sorrows or to advertise them of any other part of their duty The second conteineth all the lessons of heavenly doctrine the exposition of each of the articles of the mystery of godliness Admonition reformeth manners teaching informs faith The one moveth the will and the affections the other instructeth the understanding The Apostle protesteth elsewhere Act. 20.21 31. that he carefully joyned these two offices together not contenting himself with teaching and testifying of faith in JESUS CHRIST but moreover incessantly admonishing every one with tears And you see these two wayes meeting thoughout his Epistles in which he not only expoundeth the mysteries of faith but ever and anon descendeth to the applying of those instructions to the carriage of those whom he instructeth reproving them chiding them comforting them encouraging them as they had need And as he practis'd thus himself so he gave order for the like procedure to others whom GOD had called to the holy ministry 2 Tim. 4.2 1 Tim. 3.2 2 Tim. 2.24 Tit. 1.9 2 Tim. 3.16 17. Preach the word saith he to Timothy be instant in season and out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all sweetness of spirit and doctrine And elsewhere he wills in general that every Pastor be not only apt to teach but also able to admonish by sound doctrine and to convince gainsayers Indeed these two offices are
Paul's or the other Apostle's preaching can they ever shew us that Mass and that Purgatory and that worshipping of Saints and in one word any of those other Articles which they retain and we have relinquished Every one seeth how all these things do vary from the Lord JESUS CHRIST and make void his Cross and his Kingdom causing men to seek the expiation and purging away of their sins other-where than in His Sacrifice and attributing to Creatures the honour of Invocation and of presiding over the whole Church which belongs to Him alone But that other mark which S. Paul gives of the Doctrine which ought to be held fast doth less yet accord with them namely its having been receiv'd from the Apostles it being manifest that not one word of them is found in those holy mens writings which are the publike and authentick records of what they preached and that those traditions of Rome grew up in after-ages some at one time some at another issuing by little and little out of the forges of men according as error gathered strength as they know that read the Volumes of Antiquity without prejudice and prepossession Let our adversaries therefore leave these odious accusations They must either shew that those Doctrines of theirs which we have relinquish'd are Apostolical or confess that we had reason to relinquish them This very command of S. Paul's which they are not ashamed to object to us necessarily obliging us to adhere to that LORD JESUS CHRIST alone whom he preached and whom the Colossians believed on according to his preaching And it may not be insisted on that the Doctrine we contest with them hath been their belief for a thousand years or more Time is no prescription against any truth and least of all against the truth of CHRIST and his Apostles That which he hath pronounced continues in force for ever If any one preach ought as Gospel to you Gal. 1.8 9. besides what we have preached were it my self were it an Angel from Heaven let him be an anathema I enquire not of what date your opinions are It is sufficient for me to anathematize them that were not preached as Gospel by the Apostle Time cannot have conferred on them the advantage of being true which they had not at their rise What is not now veritable or Apostolical will never be so You are not the only men among whom Error hath grown old that gross one of Idolatry liv'd among the Pagans well nigh Two thousand years and their Rome hereto alledg'd * Symmachus her hoary hairs as well as yours doth at this day and said as now again Rome doth that it is an Undertaking ill-timed to correct old age and that to charge it with error is to affront those years It 's a thousand years and more since Mahomet's perfidy hath been up yet is never a whit the better for that You your selves observe Errors in the same antiquity whose authority you cry up so loud and you cannot deny but that those which you condemn in the communions of the Grecians of the Armenians of the Jacobites and of the Cophties are very old It 's an extreamly bad defence when men are convict of error to say that they have been a long time of that opinion How ancient soever your Doctrine is it 's young in comparison of S. Paul's since it was born after his days Neither its pretended antiquity nor any other consideration can secure it from his fulmination Since he would have us keep to that which he preached without receiving ought beside how stale and mouldy soever with age your traditions can be they all ought to perish under pain of an anathema seeing they are without the compass of S. Paul's preaching We are at this day in the same case the Colossians yer while were They stood bound by this exhortation to reject the worshipping of Angels the distinction of meats justification by the Law all that any way tended to add to that LORD JESUS CHRIST whom they had received from the hand of Paul and who had been taught them by him Let us then also freely reject the same things keep we constantly to that JESUS CHRIST whom we have received of him who did fill up all his Sermons and doth still fill up all his Epistles Content we our selves with that primitive and truly ancient Doctrine and boldly despise all the novelties that the world hath presum'd to add thereto in after-times Let us walk as the Apostle gives us order in this LORD JESUS Let Him be our only way the rule of our faith and of our manners You know the Scripture ordinarily useth this term to signifie the ordering and conduct of our life It compareth the various Disciplines and Perswasions which men follow unto Ways which lead some to one end some to another For it speaks of the way of sinners and of the way of the righteous meaning thereby the apprehensions and maxims by which they lead their lives Therefore it saith walk to signifie living or leading and ordering the life As therefore our Lord and Saviour saith that He is the Way so his Apostle enjoineth us to walk in Him that is to lead our lives both in regard of knowledg and perswasions of mind and also in respect of affections and actions according to his holy Gospel without any forsaking it to take another course judging all that varies from it to be folly how plausible soever it may appear otherways And as a prudent and advised traveller never leaves his road but puts on in it constantly till he come to his journey's end how smiling soever the Meadows look how green and fresh soever the shades be how fair and large soever the ways are that lye in view In like manner are we ordered to keep continually to the Doctrine of our Lord and Saviour and not relinquish it or assume any other of what nature or colour or appearance soever it be still resolving in our selves that whatsoever is without the dimensions of this model of Truth cannot but be dangeorus and apt if we follow it to lead us to perdition I pass by the observation which some make namely That the Apostle commanding us to walk in CHRIST doth intimate we should advance still and make progress therein For though this conception be for substance veritable it being the duty of each true believer to go forward and not pass a day without improvement 〈◊〉 piety yet it seems to me to be without the reach of the Apostle's words 〈◊〉 scope of which is simply to oblige us unto perseverance in the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST Beside what he addeth in the following verse doth sufficiently 〈…〉 commend this duty to us where he shews us after what manner we are to 〈◊〉 in JESUS CHRIST Being rooted saith he and built up in him and 〈◊〉 the faith as you have been taught and abounding therein with thanksgiving In these words he prescribeth us three things Firmness of faith the abounding
amongst us not the ordures of luxury nor the vilinies of avarice which are the infamy of His people the reproach of our profession the scandal of such as are without the shame of those that are within the ruine and eternal misery of those that obstinately continue in these vices Rather let honesty chastity purity of body and spirit charity and liberality and all other Christian vertues be seen to flourish and fructifie in the midst of us to the glory of GOD the edification of all within and without and our own salvation Amen THE THIRTY SIXTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER VIII Verse VIII But now ye also put off all these things wrath anger maliciousness detraction dishonest speech out of your mouth DEAR Brethren The Philosophers have well observed and with consonancy to truth as each of us may perceive in himself by our own experience that besides understanding and will there are in the souls of men two other inferior powers one of which desires those pleasing things that sense presents it and the other fleeth from and avoideth those that look troublesome In the barbarous language of the schools the former is called the concupiscible and the latter the irascible They both were given us by the Creator for the benefit of our nature to serve us as two goads which might prick and move us the one to seek and acquire what is profitable for it the other to repell what is contrary to it And in the primitive and legitimate constitution of our being each of these two powers exactly obeying reason they had nothing in their motions but what was good and just Afterwards sin supervening by our fall did put them into an huge disorder reason which had lost its dominion leaving them both without conduct and most commonly favouring their errors instead of correcting them For now desire embraceth any gustful thing that is presented and anger is stirred up against any thing that seems displeasing indifferently without heeding or following the judgement of right reason whence do proceed the greatest part of the sins and miseries of the life of man Accordingly you see that the principal task of those that would reform our manners is to labour above all things in the rectifying of these two powers of our souls and for the reducing of them sweetly under the yoke of reason that neither of them may ever move its self but as it commandeth or permitteth Our Apostle therefore having undertaken here to give the Colossians and all other believers which shall read this Epistle the form of that sanctity to which the discipline of our LORD JESUS CHRIST doth oblige us took care at the entrance to correct the actions and motions of the one and the other of these two powers He began with concupiscence enjoyning us to mortifie all that 's vitious in it and religiously abstain from its principal excesses which are the ordures of carnal pleasures and of avarice To this end he hath minded us of those inevitatable punishments which this kind of disorders doth ever draw down from Heaven upon the children of rebellion that if the justness of the thing it self cannot perswade us at least the fear of punishment may retain us in our duty Having thus purged our concupiscence he cometh next unto wrath and in the verse that we have read does faithfully advise us to mortifie likewise the passions thereof and all the evils they produce that our lives may be not only pure and honest but also innocent calm and peaceful and truly worthy of that JESUS CHRIST of whom we make profession the supreme pattern of sweetness and benignity But now saith he ye also put off all these things wrath anger maliciousness detraction and dishonest speech out of your mouth You plainly see that these things which he commandeth us to put off are five in all Wrath anger maliciousness detraction and dishonest speech The four first are either kinds or effects of one and the same passion even that which we call wrath The last referrs to somewhat else nevertheless he ranks it here with the other for a reason you shall hear anon This is the subject we will treat of in this action by the will of GOD. Only before our coming to it considering that there is nothing superfluous or useless in this holy Apostle's language we must discover in short the meaning and reason of those words with which he begins his exhortation But now ye also put off all these things They depend upon the precedent verse to which they most evidently referr St. Paul did there put the Colossians in mind of their ancient estate under the darknesse of Paganism before the Gospel had shone on them At that time said he to them you wallowed in the ordures of avarice and luxury as well as other children of the generation Ye walked and lived in these things When therefore he comes to add here But now put ye off all these things it is clear that he opposeth to the time of their fore-past ignorance the time of their present knowledge their faith to their error their Christianity to their Paganism the day to the night and the light to darkness and by this means he represents to them one reason to induce them to their duty drawn from their present estate For every thing as the Wise man sheweth hath its time and every season its business The actions of the day are of one sort and those of the night another and a thing that becomes childhood is not sufferable in riper years While you were in the darkness of Paganism that gross ignorance you lived in rendred your vices less strange and more excusable saith the Apostle Now that you live in the light of JESUS CHRIST with what excuse can you cover your faults any longer The laws and customs of this Divine Kingdom into which He hath called you are quite different from those of Paganism which you have renounced Be content to have escaped out of them and let it suffice you to have wretchedly lost so many years in the vices of ignorance and to have so long fulfilled the will of the Gentiles Now that GOD hath graciously brought you to quit their errors quit also their vices and henceforth regulate your manners by the light which shines about you Have no more commerce with their works since JESUS CHRIST hath brought you out of their darkness The Apostle in another place explains this reason more at length which he doth here but touch in a word The night is pass'd Rom. 13.12 1 Thes 5.6 2 Cor. 5.17 saith he and the day is come on Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour that is the garments of light You are all children of light and of the day We are not of the night nor of darkness Old things are passed away behold all things are become new Beloved Brethren Would to GOD we had this consideration alwaies before our eyes It would
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
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
gorgeousness the frowardness the obstinacy and the tongues of their wives and â—ay many other odious reproaches upon them Women on the contrary impute all this mischief to the husbands complaining some of their contempt and want of love others of their niggardliness towards them and profuseness other-waies Some declaim against their idleness and the little care they take of their affairs others against their excesses and compotations There are some that are angry at their speaking and others at their silence and in fine they forget not one ill treatment which they have received I know well that upon strict examination some fault would be found on each hand and that if cause appear to reprehend wives there would be no less to censure husbands But I had rather lay aside all this vexatious process and do conjure you Dear Brethren and Sisters in the name of GOD to do the like sparing one anothers honour consider what you are and what an union GOD hath call'd you to and each one for his part acknowledging your defects in the duty it requireth terminate all your complaints in a reciprocal pardon and forgetting all that is pass'd endeavour to procure to one another in the estate you are that peace and contentment which hitherto you have not had Do what the Apostle bids you and you shall find as much sweetness as heretofore you have tasted bitterness For as there is nothing more wretched than a marriage in which the wife hath no respect for her husband and the husband no love for his wife So neither is there any thing in the world more happy than a marriage in which the wife by an humble and respectful submission and the husband by a sincere and faithful love have their hearts and wills united in an holy concord As the first of these two conditions is an hell so the second is a very Paradise In fine My Brethren since JESUS CHRIST is the Spouse of all faithful souls you see what service and submission we are obliged to render Him May it please this Divine Spouse from that nuptial palace where he dwelleth to make us smell the odour of His mystical perfumes and to form our souls unto all the obedience the fidelity and servitude we owe him and govern us by His Spirit as He hath purchased us with His blood that after having here beneath sighed for Him we may one day eternally enjoy Him according to His promises and our hopes Amen THE FORTY FOURTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER XX XXI Verse XX. Children obey your parents in all things for this is pleasing to the LORD XXI Fathers provoke not your children lest they be discouraged DEAR Brethren Among all the mutual offices by which the society of men is conserved those incumbent on Children towards their parents and on parents towards their children are without doubt of the first rate and most necessary It 's upon them that all the rest do in some sort depend and they are in humane society what the foundation is in an edifice the foundation once demolished all the building goes to ground so the subjection of children and the superiority of parents once remov'd or unfixed the ruine of all other parts of society does necessarily follow For if a man neglect his children or misgovern them how will he duly and inhumanely treat servants or subjects or any other persons whomsoever Again if a child shake off the yoke of his Father and Mother how will he bear that of a Master or a Prince There is no likelyhood that the one or the other having fail'd in offices so sweet and natural toward persons that are so nearly in conjunction with them will ever rightly discharge any of those other which they owe to persons more remote and with whom they have much less union Whence appears the admirable wisdom of the Providence of GOD who for the forming of us unto the devoirs of love subjection and obedience which are necessary in the Civil or Ecclesiastique society we are to live in puts us at first into the bosom and under the conduct of our Fathers and Mothers that there as in a sweet and a commodious School we may timely learn the bending of our spirits unto love and respect for men and after this previous apprentiship find the yoke of those superiours under whom we are to live in Church or State less uneasie For one that hath been a good child in the house will without much trouble be a good subject in the State and likewise he that is a good Father will easily prove also a good Master a good Magistrate a good Pastor if GOD call him to either of those charges Wherefore S. Paul requires among the other qualifications of a Bishop or Pastor that he rule well his own house having his children insubjection with all reverence For saith he if a man know not how to order his own house 1 Tim 3.4.5 how shall he govern the Church of GOD These reciprocal duties therefore of parents and of children being of so great importance in the whole life of men it 's with good reason that our Apostle takes care to regulate them in the Text which we have read immediately after having in the precedent Verse formed those of Husband and Wife He speaks first to children according to the general order of beginning with the inferiours which he observes in all this part of his institution for reasons we pointed at in our last action Children saith he obey your Fathers and Mothers in all things for this is pleasing to the LORD Then he prescribes to Fathers also what pertains to them in these words Fathers provoke not your children lest they be discouraged These are the two heads we will treat of in the present action if GOD so please First the duty of children and Secondly that of Fathers As to the first of these we are to consider the Apostle's command contained in those words Children obey your Parents in all things and then the reason of this command which the Apostle annexeth when he saith For this is pleasing to the LORD He directeth the command to children and useth here in the original a term that signifyeth any person begotten of another his fruit his production a term that consequently comprehendeth all children of which soever sex that is both sons and daughters and of whatsoever degree that is grandsons in regard of their grandfathers as well as sons in regard of their fathers For the word Children according to the sense and authority both of Scripture and of the learned in the laws doth enclose the one and the other Let all those therefore to whom this title doth belong make account that to them is this injunction of the Apostles addressed Let not daughters object the weakness of their sex nor sons the strength and excellency of theirs to be dispenced with for the obedience they owe since the difference of their sexes doth not hinder but that they are
equally children Nay the weakness of maids is so far from diminishing that it strengthens their obligation in that it renders the conduct of those who brought them into the world so much the more necessary for them as they are of themselves more infirm and the fitter young mens strength makes them to serve their Fathers and their Mothers so much the more do they owe them obedience Tell me not that time or fortune as they call it hath freed you from this subjection whatever years you have attained to and whatever degree or honour ye possess you remain unalterably your Fathers and your Mothers children so that since it is unto this name the Apostle affixeth the obligation you have to obey them it 's evident that there is neither age nor Office that can or should give you a dispensation for it The Scripture sets before us an eminent example of it in Joseph who though of ripe years and the father of a family and a great LORD in Egypt where he was the second person in the State yet all this made him not forget that he was Jacob's son Gen. 46 2â— and when he knew him to be come into the Countrey he went presently to meet him his dignity withheld him not from rendring this honour to his Father He bowed down his purple before him and notwithstanding the extreme inequality of their conditions in the world respected him alwaies as his Father But let us see what that duty is which the Apostle here commandeth children to perform Obey saith he your Fathers and your Mothers in all things The Law of GOD useth the term honour Honour thy Father and thy Mother But all comes to one For sure it is that under this honour which the Legislator injoyneth just obedience also is comprised and in like manner under the obedience which St. Paul commandeth is that respect which is one of the principal sources of it understood and presupposed Only it may be noted that perhaps he chose the word obey the more effectually to shew us what that honour is which we owe our Fathers and our Mothers that it is not a vain respect which consisteth meerly in countenances and in ceremonies but a true and real reverence accompanied with obedience so as to execute readily and chearfully what they order us to do learn what they teach us correct what they dislike and forbear what they forbid us And hereby is condemned the hypocrisie of those who give their parents respects and civilities enough as to words and gestures but at the bottom take no pain to do any thing they desire of them Mat. 21.30 Like that mocker in the parable who having promised his Father to go and labour in his Vineyard yet went not But the Apostle to anticipate the vain pretexts which impiety does inspire ill natures with ordereth children not simply to obey their parents but to obey them in all things extending their authority to an infinity nor shutting up within any bounds that power which GOD and nature have given them to comand the persons they have brought into the world Why then you will say is it true indeed that Fathers and Mothers have so vast and immense an Authority and that their Children whom GOD hath created reasonable are obliged notwithstanding this advantage to obey all their commands how harsh soever and contrary to the light of their judgment they be Dear Brethren if you consider the thing in its self according to its own nature and the terms of its first institution it is very true that the authority of Parents is so great as Children are indeed obliged to obey them generally and without exception in all things they command them Nor doth this disagree with that advantage of reason wherewith GOD hath honoured children For if things had continued in their due order Fathers would command their children nothing that were contrary to right reason Now I confess sin hath disturb'd this order and it oft happens that such as are Fathers do command their children unjust things yet neither can it be deny'd but that in this case they decline from the quality of Fathers and become Tyrants For the name of Father involving in it an unfeigned love of the child a love desirous of his good and most remote from all that 's contrary to his welfare it is evidently a renouncing of this quality when a man would oblige him to things that are evil and incompatible with the duties of a reasonable creature It 's therefore this abuse and this corruption of our nature brought in by sin that hath bounded the paternal power which of its self continuing in its right use would be absolute it 's this that hath obliged both Divine and Humane Laws to annex unto it certain just and reasonable exceptions which the Apostle in another place where he treats of the same subject hath comprised all in one word Eph. 6.1 Children saith he obey your Parents in the LORD that is as far as you may without disobeying the Soveraign LORD both theirs and yours as far as their commands thwart not GOD's orders and the words he addeth in the Text it self do necessarily lead us thereto Obey them saith he in all things for this is pleasing to the LORD an addition that evidently restraineth the obedience of children to that which is pleasing unto GOD so as if the Father happen to command what displeaseth GOD the child is obliged by all kind of rights to regard more the will of GOD than the will of man This maxim remaining firm and immoveable that whatever we owe to an inferiour and subalternate power the rights of the superiour and soveraign must still remain entire For since it is GOD who gave the father himself all the authority he hath it is clear that he hath none against GOD but that as the child ought to obey him so he ought to obey GOD. When he doth it not but by an unsufferable felony casts off the yoke of this heavenly Father to whom both he and we do owe infinitely more obedience than to all the men on earth it is just to deny him that obedience which he gives not to GOD it is just that of two contrary commands the one of GOD the other of a man we do prefer the Divine before that which is humane As if a Father should command his Son to be an Idolater or to kill or to hate his Neighbour or should forbid him to embrace the service of GOD or to make profession of the Gospel of His CHRIST in these cases and other such as these disobedience would be just and obsequiousness criminal And hereto properly doth that saying of our LORD and Saviour refer Luke 14.26 If any man come unto me and hateth not his Father and his Mother and Wife and Children and Brethren and Sisters and even his life it self that is as another Evangelist expounds it Mat. 10.37 if he love these more than me he
is not worthy of me he cannot be my Disciple Saving this just and reasonable exception children owe their fathers that obedience in all things which the Apostle here enjoyns them And first in those which are of themseves good and holy and conform to the Divine will beside that the Law of GOD obligeth us all to them the command of a Father doth moreover oblige anew his children and if they fail in it beside the crime they thereby commit against GOD they commit another against paternal authority which shall be charged on them and punished apart as a different sin and worthy of its particular penalty Secondly the child again owes obedience in medial and indifferent things that is things which are morally neither good nor evil the extent whereof is very great Though such things be free of their own nature yet they are so no more unto a child after the father's order His command draws them forth of that indifferency in which they lay and renders them necessary in reference to him And here must no self-flattery take place I wish and it is their duty as we shall hear anon that Fathers would command nothing but what is humane and equitable yet if they forget themselves and pass these bounds how harsh and troublesome soever their commands be obey'd they must be if they contain in them nothing impious or contrary to the Divine Law according to the express order that S. Peter giveth Servants to be subject to their Masters not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward The reason for children in reference to their fathers is the same in this behalf with that for servants in reference to their Masters You see then Beloved Brethren the just extent of all those things in which the Apostle would have children obey their Parents Whence appears how unrighteous and dangerous and contrary to the Word of GOD the Doctrine of those of Rome is who enfranchise all Christian children from this paternal authority and power daughters at twelve and sons at fourteen giving them liberty at these so green years of age to go from their parents house will they nill they and retire from under their obedience into the cloysters of their monasteries where they have erected an assured sanctuary and an inviolable safegard for the rebellion of children against their fathers and their mothers There under the umbrage of a false devotion they entertain children in idleness and foment their impiety tyrannically giving them a dispensation for that obedience and those just succours which by all the laws of GOD and men they owe to the sacred persons of those who gave them being in the world The father demands of 'em the assistances and consolations which he promised himself from them He sheweth them his gray hairs and his limbs trembling through age he conjures them by the life he gave them and by the cares he took to breed them up He summons them to render him the just rewards of his pains and not to despise the tears and treaties of a person to whom they are obliged for their life The mother all in mourning presents them the paps that nursed them and sets before their eyes the tenderness of her affection and all the tyes of nature And they both together adjourn them before GOD that they may see themselves condemned at His dreadful tribunal to pay the honour which they owe them What say our adversaries hereupon They say that children ought to look upon their fathers and their mothers without emotion That neither their words nor their weeping should make any impression upon them That if they cannot enter into the monastery otherwaies than treading their bodies under foot they ought to have no horrour at all at so unnatural an action That it is piety to be cruel and insensible on such an occasion They say the monastick vow hath broken all the bonds of filial subjection and that the child who hath made it does no longer owe any thing to father or mother that he is dead to them and they have no more power over him no more than if he were out of the world Oh unrighteous and cruel and unnatural doctrine How could these men more plainly contradict the holy Apostle The Apostle saith Children obey your parents in all things for this is pleasing to the LORD And these Masters say Children obey them not in all things if they forbid you to be Monks scorn their Order It they command you to abide with them be gone against their will For you would do a thing displeasing to the LORD if you did not disobey them Neither let them alledge us here that they are now grown up If they cease to be children by attaining unto twelve or fourteen years I will acknowledge that they are no longer subject to their parents But if they must confess that no age does devest them of this quality it must be acknowledged that neither does any give them a dispensation for obedience since the Apostle commands it to all such as are children They excuse themselves upon the account of devotion This would pass if the father called his child unto impiety or commanded him to deny JESUS CHRIST or to serve idols But this father and this mother who would keep their child at home are Christians as well as Monks are and their house makes a part of JESUS CHRIST's as well as the Cloyster where he is kept in The obedience they demand of him is a duty commanded by the Law of GOD and very far from being contrary thereto I urge not at present that the vows by which he is pretended to be bound are contrary to the word of GOD as particularly that of mendicancy are rash as that of never marrying are injurious to the LORD as that of the blind and absolute obedience which they promise to a mortal man Let them go for permitted Certainly at least are they not necessary and themselves as great admirers of them as they are do confess I take it that one may serve GOD and obtain His kingdom without the precinct of a monastery and that neither beggery nor single lite nor the frock are things absolutely necessary to salvation There is neither place where one may not serve JESUS CHRIST in spirit and in truth nor habit but is compatible with piety Now the child ought to obey his father in all that GOD hath not prohibited Since then He hath not prohibited the living abroad out of the houses and habit of Benedict of Francis of Loyola and such other institutors of monastick life every child is necessarily obliged not to enter into them when his father forbids it him But you will say what if he hath made a vow to enter If he hath he hath done ill against the dues of piety and charity and such vows if it be an error to make them it is blindness and obduration to keep them The first and most inviolable of our vows is that which binds
us to the obedience of GOD and after Him to the obedience of our Parents If we have chanced through imprudence or other-waies to tye up our selves else-where we must speedily break the bond and make no scruple nor conscience to break it but to observe it Beside evident reason for it and the confession of all wise men who hold that vows made against moral duty do not oblige the word of GOD expresly maketh this decision If a woman saith the Law shall vow a vow unto the LORD Numb 30.4.6 and bind her self by a bond in her youth being in her Father's house if her Father disallow her in the day he heareth it not one of all her vows nor of the bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand Here you see that vows though in other respects good and lawful yet oblige not if made by children of the family without their fathers allowance And this is yet more forcibly concluded from the Lawgiver's adding Num. 30.7 8 9. that the vows of a married wife disallowed by her husband are null and void it being evident that the authority of a Father over his child is much greater and more strict than that of an husband over his wife And hither must that censure be referred which our LORD and Saviour pass'd upon the Pharisees who under colour of the religion of vows did also annul the honouring of parents by their children so expresly commanded in the Law Saith He Matt 15.4 5 6. GOD hath commanded saying Honour thy Father and thy Mother And again He that curseth his Father or Mother shall dye the death But ye say whosoever shall say to his Father or his Mother All that whereof thou mightest have profit by me is a gift or Corban though he honour not his Father or his Mother shall be free Thus have ye made the commandment of GOD of none effect through your tradition For the right understanding of this discourse of our Saviour's and of that tradition of the Pharisees he opposeth we are to know that the Jewish Rabbies as we learn by their own books did and still do make a very great account of vows holding the religion of them absolutely inviolable Moreover they listed in the rank of vows not those only which were legitimate and conceiv'd in solemn manner with terms of a full extent as when one said I make a vow unto GOD not to taste wine or strong drink during the space of forty daies and the like but also all other words in what form soever conceiv'd and uttered whether upon deliberation or in choler or otherwise by which one devoted any thing whatever were it expresly or covertly as for instance if a man in a fit of choler or in the trouble of a quarrel with his neighbour came to say through indignation Let me dye if ever I do thee any service the Rabbines took this for a true vow and accounted such a man obliged in conscience never to do that person any service against whom he had uttered such words Now because the Corban that is the sacred gifts given to the Temple were a thing which they esteemed most inviolable and the offerings there kept might not be employed to any profane use nor any private person put his hand into the treasury for that end upon pain of death hence it comes that to signifie the use of a thing was totally interdicted unto any one they said it was to him corban that is he was no more permitted to make use of it than of the sacred gifts which in their language were called by that name When therefore it fell out that a son through distaste or anger at his Father once came to say All that of which you might have profit by me is a gift or corban that is you shall never be the better for me or you shall never draw service or profit from me no more than from the corban the Pharisees and other Rabbies held that such a man was obliged by this vow of his to do his Father no service any more and they judged him innocent and blameless though he never did him any how pressing soever the Father's necessity might be alledging that the religion of a vow was above the natural obligation of children towards their fathers and their mothers which was in very deed to annull the Law of GOD by their tradition as our Saviour charged them Judge if those of Rome do not the same thing dispensing with children for the obedience due to Parents upon pretence of monastick vows in like manner and if by consequent we have not all the reasons in the world to apply unto them what our LORD said of the Pharisees even that they make the commandment of GOD of none effect by their tradition Let us then lay aside since the LORD doth so injoyn it us all humane inventions and simply and faithfully keep to the will of our Soveraign Master as He hath declar'd it to us in His word As also you see that in the Text it 's the only reason the Apostle doth alledge to oblige children to this duty He might have urged the justice of the thing it self it being evident that we owe respect and honour unto those who gave us both life and education and if not all at least the greatest part of whatsoever help and honour we possess and understand He might have argued from Nature which hath engraven this law in the heart of animals themselves whom we see especially while they are little to be subject to those that brought them forth He might have produced the custome of all nations even the least civilized not excepted who by their usage and some of them by their laws have authorized the veneration of parents as of sacred persons and have noted as is indeed very notable that the Pagan both Greeks and Romans made so great an account of this duty as to give it the same name they gave unto the fearing and worshipping of GOD calling not only devout and religious persons but those also pious who were industrious to honour and to serve their Fathers and Mothers whence it came they held that excesses committed against Parents Val. Maâ— were to be punished as violations of the honour of the Deity were The Apostle might have produced all these things and divers others But he doth it not He alledgeth nothing but the sole will of GOD as the best and the strongest and the most considerable of all reasons Children obey your Fathers and your Mothers in all things Why Because this saith he is well-pleasing to the LORD If you be a Christian this is sufficient to perswade you to render to your Parents that obedience which the Apostle commands you For how can you neglect what is pleasing to that LORD upon whom depends all your Salvation who hath been so good to you as to redeem you from eternal perdition by the death of His only Son and to give you in
Him His Spirit and His peace and the assured hope of everlasting life That this dutifulness of children towards their Parents is well-pleasing unto Him beside that the Apostle whose authority is irrefragable does expresly assert it here the LORD Himself doth evidence divers waies First by His commandment engraven by His own hand at the head of the second table of the Law Honour thy Father and thy Mother Secondly by the promise He annexeth thereunto to prolong your daies upon the earth if ye be diligent to discharge this duty In the third place by the punishments He threatens unto children disobeying their Father and Mother ordaining in the political laws of Israel Deut 21.18 Exod. 21.17 Lev. 20.9 that they should be publickly stoned by all the people of the City where they dwelt and else-where that they should irremissibly put to death him who cursed his Father or his Mother In another place He pronounceth by the mouth of sage Solomon Prov. 20.20 30.17 that the lamp of such a man shall be put out into blackest darkness and that the ravens of the valley shall pluck out and the young eagles eat the eye of him that mocketh his Father and despiseth the instruction of his Mother In fine the LORD 's calling Himself our Father and honouring us with the name of His children that He might oblige us to serve Him doth sufficiently shew of what kind and how holy and inviolable that obedience is which we owe to parents Mal. 1.6 If I be a Father saith He where is my Honour Not so much as Pagans but have acknowledged that the performance of this duty is well-pleasing to the Deity witness some of their Poets confidently promising a long and happy life to such as shall honour their Fathers and their Mothers and pay those just diligences to their old age which are due unto it But it is time to come to the other head of the Text wherein the Apostle after his having reduced children to their duty turns him unto Fathers and adviseth them to use the power he hath given them moderately and in such manner as their conduct may not tend but to their childrens benefit and their own contentment Fathers saith he provoke not your children lest they be discouraged This provocation which he forbids is an ill effect which the abuse of paternal authority produceth in the hearts of children when fathers exceed in rigour and treat them too roughly which comes to pass a great many waies First when they deny them a just allowance and what is necessary to accommodate them according to their birth The Apostle hath judged this so enormous a sin 1 Tim. 5.8 that he sticks not to say that he that commits it hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel Secondly Fathers provoke their children when they give them unrighteous and inhumane commands 1 Sam. 20.30 as when Saul would needs oblige Jonathan his son to hate and persecute David a very virtuous and innocent person whereupon ensued that this generous son most unworthy of so bad a Father was vexed and inflamed with despight and anger If the daughter of Herodias had had any sparkle of this good nature she would have been in like manner offended at that cruel and barbarous command her mother made her Mat. 14.8 to ask of King Herod the head of John the Baptist in a Charger 'T is also the provoking of a child when he shall without any necessity be compelled unto sordid and servile actions and such as are beneath his birth In this rank too I put those who without cause do beat their childrens ears with contumelious words whether present passion does inspire them or an ill-favoured custome hath habituated their tongues to so venomous a stile For we see some that cannot speak unto their children nor reprove them nor so much as call them to 'em in any other dialect but discharge at every turn an hail-shower of maledictions and opprobrious terms upon them A kind of carriage as abject and odious as may be extremely unworthy of any honest and ingenious man especially of a Christian whose mouth ought to be a source of blessing and have nothing issue from it but what is grave and holy and proper to edifie But neither is there any person with whom a wise man should less deal in that manner than his child whom such indiscretion doth deject and infinitely dismay if he hath ever so little spirit and sensibility It was with this black and piquant salt that Saul did season the remonstrances he made to his Jonathan Thou son saith he to him of a perverse 1 Sam. 20.30 rebellious woman do I not know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own confusion and to the confusion of thy Mothers nakedness Are these the words of a Father and not rather of an Enemy yea of a barbarous enemy that hath neither honour nor civility As indeed it was choler that spake and not reason And he suffered himself to be so transported by the fury of his passion that after such a tempest of rude words he failed not to throw his lightning casting a javelin at him as the Scripture relateth it to smite him And this is the height of those excesses which the Apostle intends here by that provoking which he forbids when fathers chastise their children either without cause or without measure and beyond what they deserve For if justice oblige us to keep our minds free and composed in punishing the greatest strangers and the heynousest malefactors that we may exactly proportion the penalty to their faults Den as the LORD expresly commanded the Judges of His people how much more should a Father whose name breaths nothing but benignity and sweetness observe the same moderation when his business is to chasten his child GOD gives us example of it in His treatment of His children chastising them in very deed but as Himself says with the rod of men and with the stripes of the children of men 2 Sam. 7 1â— that is moderately and with an humane rod a rod tempered with gentleness and benignity The Apostle to take off Fathers from this fault shews them the evil that comes of it Provoke not your children saith he lest they be discouraged For there is nothing that doth more deject the heart of a child especially if ingenious than this rigour and roughness of a Father First it saddens him when in the countenance and actions of that person to whom of all men in the world he should in reason be dearest he sees nothing but anger and aversion This grief doth often cast him into languishings and mortal maladies which make Fathers regret and execrate though vainly and too late their unhappy and imprudent severity Then again this kind of carriage intimidateth children and depriveth them of all courage for any good and honest undertaking and smothereth in them all the fire and vivacity they had
For seeing themselves still put back by their own Fathers what can they hope for from other hands Some which is yet worse are by this means hardened and together with sensibility and nature do lose all shame and modesty and fall at last by little and little into desperate impiety no longer making any account of GOD or men which is the utmost and horrid'st degree of viciousness Consider if the fear of so great a mischief do not oblige all fathers who have any remainder I will not say of piety but even of judgement and good sense to take heed that they provoke not their children Brethren I beseech you improve now this instruction of the Apostles Children to whom first he addresseth his discourse render ye to your Fathers and Mothers in all things the obedience he commands you Remember the life they gave you the pains they have taken to preserve it to you the cares they have had to adorn and enrich it both with necessary knowledges and with conveniences requisite for the happy passing of it the fears and tears they have been and at every turn are still in for you their patience in bearing with the weaknesses of your infancy and the extravagancies of your youth the tenderness and constancy of the love they bear you a love so great so ardent that you are the principal object of their desires that they preferr your contentment before their own and toil not but for you and have you night and day in their hearts the vows wherewith they follow you every where craving nothing of GOD more instantly than your advancement and happiness and looking on you as the principal subject of their hopes and of their joy Have not so unnatural a soul as not to resent all these strict obobligations which you have to love and serve and honour them Pay their love with your respects and their pains with your obedience and be not so wretched as to render them trouble and affliction for so many benefits as you have received of them nor so ingrateful as to frustrate the just hopes they have conceived of you Certainly you would owe them this obedience though no other consideration did oblige you than what is founded in themselves But there is more than so The Apostle assures you that in performing your duty unto men you will please GOD the Father of Spirits and Ruler of the World This saith he is plaesing unto Him He will reckon it to you as a part of the piety you owe Him and charge Himself with the services you shall render unto those whom He hath given you for authors of your life It 's the best and the most pleasing devotion you can offer Him Miserable Superstition that goest to seek in cloysters for exercises pleasing unto GOD There was no need to go out of the Fathers house for this Thou hast enough at home wherewith to please the LORD As for the particular exercises about which Monks are busied in their cloysters we know not whether they please GOD who never commanded them But for the services which our Parents demand of us for their consolation and the easing of their lives we cannot doubt but that they are most pleasing to Him since He commands them and His Apostle assureth us here expresly of it Consider I pray the imprudence of these people They say they would please GOD and that it 's their whole aim to content Him Mean time to attain thereto they renounce the obeying of their Parents which is pleasing to him and subject themselves unto the fansies and the rugged rules of certain men of which they neither have nor can have any assurance that they please GOD Is not this to quit a certainty for an uncertainty and to do the wrong way what one pretends and go further off from what one seeks and cast one's self upon what he would eschew But ye Brethren better instructed by the word of the LORD seek to please Him in doing what He orders you and in employing that time and labour to the serving of and obeying your Parents which superstition loseth in its painful but vain and fruitless exercises This is the way to be pleasing unto GOD and to assure unto your selves that crown of blessednesse which He hath promised to such children as faithfully discharge this duty As for you Believing Parents nature it self and the interest of your own happiness so forcibly impelleth you to love your children and to treat them well that if the Apostle had forborn to give such an express advertisement against provoking them I think there would not have been much need to say any thing of it We offend much more on the other hand I mean in excess of affection and in the softnesses of indulgence not heeding that to treat them so laxely is in truth to hate and not to love them to destroy and not to breed them up The Apostle forbids you to provoke them but hinders not your correcting your reproving your chastening them if they deserve it He willeth only that your conduct be just and temperate that it keep a mean between the two extremes the roughness of severity and the remisnesse of indulgence The care you owe them is to form them unto true Vertue unto the knowledge and the fear of GOD unto charity and justice and honesty towards men to give them examples hereof in your lives and inculcate the lessons of them with your lips Whereas we our selves ruine their manners and form them early to our Vices almost before they know them Our greatest care is to keep their courage high and instruct them unto pride and inure them unto vanity as if nature had not given them enough of it And hereto they that have the means fail not to add Ball and Dance and Comedy And that they may the better learn these brave lessons Fathers and Mothers give them examples of ' em We need not wonder if under such education we see our youth to speed so ill if it become insolent if it hath little sentiment of true piety if it treat those so much amiss to whom it oweth most respect Brethren if you have children remember that beside the interest you have in their vertue and their vices you shall render an account for them unto GOD who hath given them to you to breed them for His glory and for the edification of His Church and not to content the world or to serve vanity But Dear Brethren of whatever state or condition we are let us further take out two lessons here which the Apostle gives us The one is to render all of us unto GOD an exact and humble obedience in all things since we have the honour to be His children It 's this that the child owes his Father We are not His if we obey Him not We falsly vaunt our selves in that glorious title if we neglect the duty to which it obligeth us The other lesson is that the Will of GOD should be