us This is the mysterie of the bread we there break and of the cup we there bless in remembrance and for the communicating of that sacred body which was broken for us and of that divine blood which was shed for the remission of our sins Let us carefully improve a doctrine so necessary and which is so diligently inculcated on us in the word and in the Sacraments of our LORD referring it to our edification and comfort Learn we from it first the horrour of sin a spot so black as could not be washed out but by the blood of JESUS CHRIST That remission of it might be given us it was necessary the Father should deliver up His dear Son to dye and the Son give His blood the preciousest jewel of the universe a thousand times more worth than heaven and earth and all the glory of them From this meditation conceive a just hatred against Sin since it is so abominable in the eyes of this Soveraign LORD on whose communion alone depends all your bliss shun it and pluck it out of your Consciences and your hearts As for sins already committed seek the remission of them in the blood of CHRIST Give your selves no rest till you have found it till you have obtained grace till it be exemplified in your souls by the hand and seal of the Holy Ghost Lay by the pretended satisfactions and merits of men Have no recourse but to the righteousness of JESUS CHRIST which alone is able to cover our shame and render us acceptable to GOD. But having once obtained pardon for the time passed return not into it for the future When sin shall present it self to you repell it couragiously opposing to all its temptations this holy and healthsome consideration It 's my Master 's the murtherer of the LORD of glory It 's the accursed Serpent that separated man from GOD that put enmity between Heaven and earth that sowed misery and death in the world and obliged the Father to deliver up His Son to the sufferings of the Cross GOD forbid I should take into my bosome so cruel so deadly an enemy But from this same source we may also draw unspeakable consolation against the gnawing guilt of sin and the troubles of Conscience For since it 's by the blood of the Son of GOD that we have been redeemed what cause is there to doubt but that our remission is assured The superstitious hath reason to be in continual affright since man in whom he puts his confidence is but vanity The propitiatory I present you Faithful soul is not the blood of a man or of an Angel creatures finite and incapable of sustaining the eternal burnings of the wrath of the Almighty It is the blood of GOD's own Son who also is Himself GOD blessed for ever It 's a blood of infinite value and truly capable of counter-poising and bearing down the infinite demerit of your crimes Come then sinner whoever you be Come with assurance How foul soever your transgessions be this blood will cleanse them away How ardent soever the displeasure of GOD against you be this blood will quench it Only bedew your soul with it Make an aspersion of it on your hearts with a lively faith and you shall no more need to fear the word of the executioner of the avenges of GOD. But Faithful Brethren having thus assured your Conscience by the meditation of this divine blood of our LORD admire ye also His infinite love which He so clearly sheweth us and confirmeth to us This King of Glory hath so loved you that when your sins could not be pardoned without the effusion of His blood He would dye upon a Cross rather than see you perish in Hell He poured out His blood to keep in yours and did undergo the curse of GOD that you might partake in His blessings O great and incomprehensible love the singular miracle of Heaven which ravishest men and Angels What should we fear henceforth since this great GOD hath so loved us Who shall condemn us since He is our surety Who shall accuse us since He is our Advocate He hath given us His own blood What can He any longer refuse to bestow on us He hath laid down His soul for us how much more will He grant us all other things that may be necessary for our salvation But as this thought doth comfort us so ought it to sanctifie us Of what Hells shall not we be worthy if we love not a LORD who hath so passionately loved us If we obey not His commandments who hath blotted out our sins If for this precious blood which He hath given us we do not render to Him ours and consecrate to His glory a life which He hath redeemed by the offering up of His own in sacrifice for our salvation And after an example of so ravishing goodness how can we be ill affected to any man Christians GOD hath forgiven you a thousand and a thousand most-enormous sins how have you the heart to deny your neighbour the pardon of one slight offence He hath given you His blood you that were His enemy How can you refuse a small almes to him that is your Brother and that upon the account both of nature and grace Let the goodness of the LORD JESUS mollifie the hardness of your heart let the vertue of His blood melt your bowels into sweetness into charity and into love both toward Him and towards His members Discharge you this very day at His table of all the bitter passions of your flesh Put off there pride hatred and envy and clothe you there with His humility and His gentleness Do him new homage and give Him oath to be never any others but His alone presenting your selves with deepest respect before this Throne of His grace Remember both at this time and ever after that blood by which He hath obtained Redemption for you that is the remission of your sins This blood is the peace of Heaven and of earth This blood hath brought us out of Hell and opened Paradise unto us It hath delivered us from death and given us life This blood hath blotted out the sentence of our curse that stood registred in the Law of GOD it hath stopped the mouth of our accusers and pacified our Judge This blood hath effected a renovation of the world It hath quickned the dead and animated the dust and changed our mortal flesh into a celestial and divine nature Dear Brethren GOD forbid we should tread under foot a thing so holy or account such precious blood profane or common Let us reverence it and receive it into our hearts with an ardent devotion And may it display its admirable efficacy in them causing the royal image of GOD even holiness and righteousness to flourish there to the glory of the LORD and our own consolation and salvation Amen THE VII SERMON COL I. Ver. XV. Vers XV. Who is the image of the invisible GOD the first-born of every
yea a glorious light that is to say great and sparkling Why then saith he that the treasures of wisdom are hid in Him whereas it seemeth he should say on the contrary that they are manifested in Him that they shine out and appear clearly in Him I answer that the one and the other may be said in divers respects For if you consider the thing in its self the treasures of wisdom are manifested to us in JESUS CHRIST and there is no purifyed Soul but sees them in Him and acknowledgeth them immediately when it views Him as the Gospel represents Him But if you have respect to the eyes and perceptions of men as they naturally are even obscured and corrupted by Sin I confess it 's hard for them to discern in JESUS CHRIST the riches of wisdom and knowledg which the Father hath put in Him and that this proceeds in part from that veil of meanness and infirmity wherewith He is as it were covered all over And this makes S. Paul say elswhere that CHRIST crucified whom He preached was to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness though to the faithful who were called He was the Power and the Wisdom of GOD. Therefore it being necessary for our Salvation that He should be born and live poorly on earth and there suffer in the end the death of the Cross which surpassed all others for cruelty and ignominy the Father who sent Him in this form cloath'd with this sad and shameful mantle that assrighteth men hath both manifested and hidden His treasures in Him He hath manifested them in Him since it is in Him and by Him that He exhibiteth to us whatsoever we ought to know for the attainment of Salvation He hath hidden them in Hun since He hath covered this treasure with such a veil as by its poor and contemptible look discourageth men and makes them say as Isaiah prophecyed He hath no form nor comeliness in Him and when we see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him But they which have their eyes purified by light from on high do discern under this appearing simplicity and humility all coelestial riches in their stateliest and most glorious form This is the Apostle's meaning here when he saith that these treasures are hid in CHRIST He advertiseth us that we must not stop at that infirmity and emptiness which appeareth at first sight in Him and disgusteth vain and earthly spirits but look within and contemplate the great wonders which GOD hath there manifested for our compleat instruction and consolation Hitherto we have examin'd the words of this Text. It remaineth that we now consider the truth in it We shall do it but summarily For the prosecution of this rich subject in its whole extent is above the ability of Man or Angel to be worthily performed so great is the heighth and depth of it But we will briefly touch its chief heads Mans true wisdom in his present state is to know His misery with the means to escape it and his felicity with the way that he must take to attain it As for our misery nature indeed hath given us some perception of it there being scarce a man in the world who sees not some depravation and irregularity in himself and whose conscience doth not reproach him with his faults and threaten the judgment of a supream justice The Law hath taught us much more of it representing GOD unto us as armed with inexorable severity against sinners and fulminating his curse upon them But beside that these knowledges are weak and are easily smothered in security there is this sorrow with them that having shewed us our misery they do not inform us of the remedy so as if they be necessary to draw us out of that folly wherein the most are plunged who confidently sleep amid the tempest and presume they are well while they have a mortal impostume in their brain or in their bowels yet it cannot be said that they suffice to make us wise seeing that for the just possession of this title a man must know not only his malady but also the means to cure it And yet though we knew it too nevertheless this would not be sufficient because besides deliverance from evil we desire also the fruition of good yea the chief Good But neither the light of nature nor even the light of the Law does reveal to us what this supream felicity is which without distinct knowing it we do desire so far are they from shewing us the way to it But in JESUS CHRIST as proposed to us in the Gospel these Verities that are necessary to render us wise are found clearly and fully all of them For as to our misery He declareth it exactly to us not by some surd and inarticulate sounds as nature doth nor by circuitions and essaies as the Law did but by the fullest and most moving way of information that ever was in the world even crying aloud to us from that Cross to which our sins had nailed Him Behold ye sons of men how horrid your crimes are since that it was necessary for the washing them away that I should come down from the Heavens shed forth my blood Behold how great irreparable your fall was since there was none in heaven or earth that could raise you up again but my self As much as the life of the Son of GOD is more precious than the life of all mankind so much clearer is the proof which his death giveth us of the horror of sin than that which we might take from the death of all that ever sinned though we should we see them stricken down together and punished by the avenging justice of GOD. But if this great Saviour do make us so feelingly perceive the horridness of our misery his end is only to make us the more ardently desire and embrace the remedy which he offereth us fully prepared from that same Cross to which he He was fastned for us I grant that the forbearance and kindness of GOD in his conduct of men though sinful might give them some sparkle of hope and his promises under the old Covenant had highly confirm'd it betimes But the Sword of his Justice dreadfully flaming in the hand of the Law perplexed them not a little and it was very difficult for them to accord His inflexible righteousness with the mercy that was necessary for them JESUS CHRIST hath removed all these difficulties and exhibiteth unto us in his Cross the solution of all our doubts Fear nothing sinner I saith he have contented the Justice of God and satisfied his Law Boldly trust his promises and approach his Throne with full assurance This blood which hath opened to you the entrance thither is not the blood of a beast nor an earthly ransome it is the blood of GOD a ransome of infinite value more than sufficient to take away your sins how infinite soever the demerit of them be But you will say This
is the only source thereof to render Him thanks for it This is the just and reasonable Tribute this liberal LORD demandeth of us for so many benefits as he communicateth daily to our Brethren and our selves If our lowness and poverty render us incapable of other acknowledgement let us at least faithfully acquit us of this so easie an one and so rightful and say with the Prophet Psalm 116.12 13. What shall I render to the LORD All his benefits are upon me I will take the cup of deliverances and call upon the Name of the Eternal One. Let us study with so much the more care to render this sacred due to the LORD by how much more black and detestable the ingratitude of men is in this behalf Far from blessing Him for the benefits he doth their neighbours they scarce give Him thanks for those they receive of Him themselves They impute them to their own industry or fortune and as saith the Prophet Sacrifice to their Drag for the good successes that betide them yea some so insensible there are as it is not godliness it self but they give the glory of it to their own will and the strength of their free determination But it is not enough to render thanks to GOD for our Brethren there must be also prayer for them For as it is He that gives them all the good things they possess So there is none but himself that can preserve or augment them to them and thus our thanksgivings should be ever followed or accompanied with Petitions as the Apostle sheweth in saying that be giveth thanks to GOD for the Colossians praying alwayes for them The Title He giveth to GOD calling Him the Father of our LORD JESVS CHRIST is not put here in vain but to distinguish and specifie the object of our prayers and thanksgivings The appellation of GOD under the Old Testament was The GOD of Abraham of Isaac and of Jacob the Patriarchs with whom He contracted the Old Covenant and to whom He promised the New Now His Name is the Father of JESVS CHRIST by whom He hath abolished the Old Testament and accomplished the New Besides hereby St. Paul remindeth us of that we can never enough meditate that it is by the mean of this sweet and charitable Saviour GOD hath communicated Himself to us and if we have the honour to be His children 't is by JESUS CHRIST of whom He is properly the Father having not adopted Him as us but begotten Him from all eternity of His own substance by reason whereof that also which He assumed to Himself in the Womb of the Virgin hath the same glory according to what the Angel said The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee said he to the Holy Virgin and the Vertue of the Highest shall overshadow thee Luke 1 35. whence also that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of GOD. But the Apostle addeth in his process what were those blessings of the Colossians for which himself and Timothy so assiduously rendred their thanks to GOD the Father of our Saviour Having heard speak of your faith in JESVS CHRIST saith he and of the charity you have towards all the Saints He had never been among them as He will say hereafter putting them after the opinion of most Interpreters Col. 2.1 in the number of those Who had not seen his presence in the flesh Therefore he saith it was by hearing that he understood of their faith and charity Here is faithful Sirs the true matter of our joyings and thanksgivings for our neighbours not that GOD hath given them vigour of health abundance of riches the favour of the great the glory of fame the knowledge of Sciences and such other worldly good things which to say the truth are but figures dreams and shadows that secure no person as we daily see either from diseases of the body or death or from trouble and disquiet of conscience or true misery But indeed for that Heaven hath revealed JESUS CHRIST to them and shed into their souls that holiness without which none shall see GOD. For these two Graces Faith and Charity comprize within their compass the whole Kingdom of GOD. Faith is the entrance thereof and charity the accomplishment The one cleareth our understandings the other sanctifieth our affections The one is the light of the soul the other is the heat thereof The one believeth and the other loveth The one beginneth and the other finisheth the happiness of our life Now Faith respects indeed generally the whole doctrine of GOD revealed in His Word believing it undoubtedly true but yet it fixeth particularly on the Promise He hath made us to give us Eternal Life in JESUS CHRIST His Son 'T is this properly that renders Faith saving and vivifying Without this it would not differ at all from the faith of Devils who believe there is a GOD and tremble at it But this love of GOD which it apprehendeth and embraceth giveth it salvation and enables it to produce in us all that 's necessary for getting in to the celestial Kingdom according to the assertions of JESUS CHRIST and His Apostles in divers places of the Scripture that whosoever believeth in the LORD is already passed from death to life That there is no condemnation for him and that being justified by faith we have peace with GOD. Hence St. Paul to describe here true faith addeth expresly these words Faith in JEVS CHRIST He sheweth us in like manner the object of Charity by saying The Charity you have towards all the Saints that is as we have intimated afore towards all Christians all the faithful I confess that Charity extendeth it self to all men generally there being none to whom we owe not love and on occasion the offices which a true and sincere affection is apt to produce since all men are the Works and Images of GOD since in Adam they all have one common nature with us and all are called to the participation of faith and of eternity in JESUS CHRIST by the Gospel which without distinction or exception inviteth all Nations and persons to repentance and grace But so it is notwithstanding that Charity embraceth not all men equally It hath divers degrees in it's affections and loveth it's neighbours more or less as it perceiveth more or less in them the marks of the hand of GOD and the tokens of His CHRIST and Spirit Seeing therefore they appear no where more clearly than in the Saints that is in true believers it is evident these make the first and principal part of the object of Charity Gal. 6.10 according to what the Apostle saith elsewhere Let us do good to all but principally to the houshold of faith Besides that Union we have with them a much more strict and intimate one than with any others their necessity also doth particularly oblige us thereto the hatred and persecution of the world putting them for the most part in such
and next in regard of its degrees For its extent it comprehends the things themselves that we can know which being almost infinite it is evident a man may know some who yet knoweth not others And as for its degrees one self-same thing is known more clearly and more distinctly by one more obscurely and confusedly by another It 's the same in this as it is in seeing One seeth and discovereth more objects than another and of those that see one and the same object one seeth it much more clearly and purely than another and whatever be the cause of this diversity whether the inequality of their eyes or the difference of their attention or that of the light which brightens them so it is that their seeing is very different that of the one being imperfect and defective in comparison of the other's The Apostle therefore beseeching the LORD that the Colâ—ssians might be filled with knowledge intendeth that they might obtain of His goodness a perfection both of the one and the other sort first that if there were any points of the Gospel not yet come to their knowledge He would grant them the grace to observe and apprehend them and secondly that if they did not purely enough apprehend the things they knew already He would so shine on them by the light of His spirit that they might clearly and distinctly perceive them For it is in these two points that the fulness or perfection he wisheth them in this place doth consist the one not to be ignorant of any of the necessary particulars of the mysterie revealed to us by the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST The other to know each of these particulars clearly and distinctly seeing the truth of them as in a great and resplendant light Besides we must remember that as the estate of a believer is of one sort here below where he travails for a time and after another on high in Heaven where he shall live in the bosome of GOD so the perfection of his knowledge is of two sorts the one earthly and the other heavenly This same is his last and highest perfection that same is but the disposition and beginning of it the one is the perfection of his infancy the other of his full age And though the first may be in a sense and in some respect truly termed fulness and perfection yet in regard of the other it 's imperfect Whence it comes that the Apostle elsewhere putting these two knowledges in parallel one with the other saith that now we know 1 Cor. 13.9 10 11 12. but in part and see but darkly in a glass whereas in the other World we shall see face to face and know as we have been known And in the same place he compareth the knowledge we have here below to the thoughts of a child and that which we shall have on high to the thoughts and judgement of a perfect man Then all the arguments of the truth of the Gospel shall be so magnificently displayed before our eyes that doubt of it shall not be able to take place any more and whereas now we see but the images of things then we shall touch the substance of them besides that the light of our understandings shall be incomparably more clear and pure than it is here below But though considering the thing in its self one may call perfect only the knowledge of a believer enjoying the vision of his LORD on high in the Heavens yet referring and ajusting it to the state we are now in there is also on earth a sort of knowledge which in this respect may be called perfect namely the highest measure a faithful person can attain while he is here beneath As though the knowledge of a child be far below the lights of a perfect man yet this hinders not but there is a certain form and measure of knowledge proportionate to the capacity of this age which when the Child is come to we say it is an accomplished Child yea most accomplished For every age hath its perfection and every greatness its full height T is then of this second sort of perfection and fulness the Apostle intends to speak when he prayes the LORD that the Colossians might be filled with knowledge that is not that they might see the LORD face to face this is not given but in the other world but that they might receive of his goodness all the light necessary for the estate we are in here below and as high and rich a measure of knowledge as may and should be had on earth for getting one day to the upmost degree in the Kingdom of Heaven And note here by the way the holy artifice of the Apostle By praying GOD that the Colossians might be filled he secretly advertiseth them that they yet wanted something that he might render them teachable and attentive to the instructions he will hereafter give them For those that think they are perfect and have an entire and accomplished knowledge do disdain what any one would add thereto as a thing superfluous and unprofitable Therefore he timely takes away this imagination from the Colossians that they may patiently suffer him to instruct them and finish in them what was only rough-drawn To the same end doth that tend which he addeth that they might be filled with the knowledge of the will of GOD. For by this word he rejecteth and removeth far from this subject all the inventions and doctrines of men the disputes and subtilities of Philosophy the voluntary devotions and superstitions which had been sowed among the Colossians by the false teachers as things rather contrary than useful to the perfection and happiness of man and restraineth all the knowledge he desireth for them to the sole will of God as its true object and its just measure Upon which we have first to remark that the word here used by the Apostle in the Original and which we have translated knowledge signifieth properly a great and ample knowledge and these holy Authors employ it ordinarily to express that knowledge of GOD which is given us by the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST For the Law of Moses and the Doctrine of the Prophets doth indeed teach what is the will of GOD. But it hath not designed to declare it so purely and so fully as the Gospel Whence it comes that St. 2 Pet. 2.19 Peter compareth the light of the Prophets to that of a candle shining in a dark place and that of the Gospel to the brightness of the day And it s hereto St. John hath respect when he saith Joh. 1.18 that no man hath seen GOD at any time and that the only Son which is in the bosome of the Father He hath revealed Him Because the knowledge which was of Him before the manifestation of the LORD JESUS was so weak as it is scarce considerable in comparison of that which is given us It 's therefore properly this Evangelical and Christian knowledge which the Apostle wisheth
if the Heavens and the Elements and the Winds and the Meteors and the Plants things deaf and dumb and inanimate do preach and celebrate the wonders of their LORD all of them obeying His voyce and faithfully serving His designs what will our ingratitude be if with these senses and this excellent reason He hath given us we alone of all His creatures should cross His counsels and dishonor His Name instead of glorifying it The glory He requireth of us is only that we walk in His Commandments that we abound in good and holy works that we depart from all evil and live in such manner as may oblige our neighbours to acknowledge that this JESUS whom we serve is truly a great GOD. Acquit we us then faithfully of these duties and assure our selves that if we advance His glory He will provide for our bliss and guard us from all that opposeth the same For since all things Celestial and Terrestrial visible and invisible were created and do still subsist by Him there is nothing in the whole world that should make us afraid All the Armies of Heaven of the Elements and of Nature are in our Masters pay and neither war nor work but for His interests and by His order These very Thrones these Principalities these Powers and these Dominions which He hath exalted above all His other creatures do not employ the mightiness and the glory of their nature but for Him and for those that fear Him They are ministring Spirits sent forth to serve for their sakes that shall receive the inheritance of Salvation They keep us in all our ways They defend us in life they assist us at death and convey us up into the bosom of our true Abraham Let us live in assurance under the protection of so good and so great a LORD that we may one day receive at His hand blissful Immortality the great and last Donative His Benignity conferreth To Him with the Father and the Holy Spirit the true GOD blessed over all things be for ever Honor Glory and Praise Amen THE IX SERMON COL I. Ver. XVIII Vers XVIII And it is He who is the head of the body of the Church and who is the beginning and the first-born from the dead to the end He might have the first place in all things IT is not without just cause Beloved Brethren that the Apostle St. Paul speaking of the union of JESUS CHRIST and His Church which was represented at the beginning of the world Eph. 5.32 by the marriage of Adam and Eve doth pronounce it aloud to be a great secret For in effect there is nothing in this mysterie which way soever you take it but is very great and worthy the admiration of men and Angels First if you weigh the thing it self is it not wonderful strange and unheard of in the world that the Creator should unite Himself with the creature The LORD of glory with worms The King of Heaven with dust and ashes The Saint of Saints with sinners Then again if you consider the foundation of this Union what can be conceived of a more ravishing nature than the birth and the death of the Son of GOD upon which this Divine alliaâ—â—e was contracted this mystical Spouse having had so vehement a passion for the Church that to make her His He made Himself a man like us and shed out all His blood upon a Cross If you contemplate the form and manner of this Union it is so strict and intimate that it perfectly mingleth together the parties whom it doth unite and makes them one only body one flesh and one Spirit joyning both their persons and their affairs and in such manner confounding their interests that JESUS CHRIST is wholly His Churches and the Church wholly Her CHRIST's The firmness of this Union is no less admirable being such as all the powers of the Earth of Hell or of Heaven are not able to dissolve it and whereas Nature hath bound nothing in the whole Universe but time doth lose it in the end the sacred clasps of this the Churches eternal Union with her LORD shall never be undone either in this world or in that which is to come by any of those innumerable ages that shall roul forth Finally if you respect the effects of it what can be mentioned of more glorious and saving import than the fruits this Union doth produce It filleth our understanding with light it purifies our affections it sanctifies our hearts it keepeth the peace of GOD in them it changeth slaves of Devils into Children of the most High it transformeth Earth into Heaven and instead of that death and curse which we deserved it giveth us eternity and glory For 't is from it alone that all those Divine graces do flow down which we enjoy in this world and all the advantages and felicities we hope for in the other It need be no wonder therefore that the Scripture doth make use of so many different resemblances to figure out to us so excellent and so rich a subject there being to be found no one so accomplished as might singly suffice to represent us all the marveils of it For this cause it borroweth to express this same one all the unions that nature or art or humane society doth afford us comparing it sometimes to the Union of a Vine with its branches or of an Olive with the graffs that are set into its slock sometimes to the knitting of a Foundation with the building which it beareth or of a corner stone with the two walls which it binds together sometimes to the conjunction of a Prince with His subjects or of an elder brother with the younger or of an husband with his wife But among all these sacred pictures of our union with the LORD there is hardly any more proper or more genuine than the two similitudes which the LORD my Brethren now sets before you the one in those words of His Apostle which we have read to you and the other on that sacred Table whither you are invited to the feast of His Lamb. The first is drawn from the natural union of the head with its members and the second from the union of bread and drink with the bodies which are nourished thereby By reason of the one CHRIST is our head and we His body By reason of the other He is called our bread our meat and our drink and we the creatures whom He feedeth and quickneth And though in other respects these two images be very different yet in this particular they agree that they excellently represent to us both our union with the LORD and the life which is thence derived to us it being clear that as well the head as the food doth each of them give life to the bodies with which they are united This hath induced me to believe that the meditation of this Text will be useful for the Sacrament of the LORD's Supper for which we prepare our selves since for the main
Such was the sad and dismal estate of the world the end whereof could be nothing else but ruine and eternal perdition Therefore GOD to restore its primitive beauty yea to raise it to a perfection higher than that of its first original reconciled all things by His CHRIST both Terrestrial and Celestial He took away the wars the hatreds and the aversions that divided them and reduced them all into that union which they ought to have for His glory and their own good As to things on earth you know what was the enmity and the separatedness of the Jews and Gentiles whom the Law as a partition wall did bar off from the fellowship of the people of GOD. CHRIST laid this enterclose even with the ground and recalling the Gentiles associated and rea-allyed them with the Jews to make them thenceforth one only and the same people He did as much to the distinctions that separated the more Polite Nations from the Barbarous the Latines from the Greeks the East from the West the North from the South He removed all these marks and differences and united all Nations Sects and conditions into one only people into one only body namely His Church It 's thus that things on earth were reconciled As for things in heaven it was the good pleasure of the Father to reconcile them also by His Son For the Angels the true Citizens of heaven were our foes after sin whereas they are henceforth our Friends and our Allies united with us under JESUS CHRIST our common Head Aforetime they were armed against us with flaming sword now they fight for us and encamp about us They did drive us off from the entrance into Paradise Now themselves do bear our souls thither at their departure out of this life They take part in our interests they are sad at our disasters and rejoyce at our amendment And to testifie how delightful this Reconciliation is to them they saluted the birth of our Lord who came to make it with their songs and melodies For it they glorified GOD and blessed and congratulated men But as the mischief of our sin communicated it self to all the parts of the Universe even those that are without life putting them all in disorder and subjecting them unto vanity so I account that this blessed Reconciliation must be extended even to them also The will of GOD was to comprehend them also in it re-uniting the heavens with our earth and all the Elements with us For heaven which had nothing but Lightnings and Thunder for us and that would rather have been reduc'd to nothing than receive us into its courts is now liberal towards us of its comfortable light and openeth to us the most secret Sanctuaries of its glory Life is at accord with us Immortality is in good intelligence with our flesh the Grave is no longer our enemy the Elements shall be serviceable to our welfare they shall work no more against us And so you see how the will of GOD was to reconcile things on earth and things in heaven by His Son and reduce all the parts of the Universe unto good terms each with other This great work is begun the foundations of it are laid the pledges of it are given us But it will not be perfectly accomplished until the latter day when the world freed from the bondage under which it yet groaneth shall appear entirely changed its new heavens and its new earth and its new elements with the Angels and the Saints and all its other parts conspiring together in an eternal concord and an inviolable correspondence to the glory of their common Creator who shall then be all in all 1 Cor. â—â— as the Apostle elsewhere saith And it 's this in my opinion which he meaneth in this place when he saith That the Father would reconcile all things in Himself as the Original precisely runneth For these words signifie not the term but the end and event of this Reconciliation that is to say that it shall be made not with GOD as the greater part of Expositors have understood it but for the glory of GOD. For it is plain that heavenly things were not reconciled with GOD for they never were at odds with Him But it is no less evident that their Reconciliation with us in the sense we have explained it will redound to the glory of GOD when this whole Universe shall return entirely to its true and due union It 's this therefore the Apostle intendeth when he saith That it is the good pleasure of the Father to reconcile all things in Himself that is for Himself It remains now that we speak of the means which GOD made use of to bring this great work of the Reconciliation of the world to its end S. Paul shews it us when he addeth Having made peace by the blood of the cross of CHRIST The war that man had with GOD in consequence of his sin was as we said afore the true and only cause of the bad intelligence we were in with the Angels and the other parts of the World Whence it is clear that to make the latter cease there needed only an extinguishing of the former that is to reconcile us with the Creatures there needed only a recovering us to the favour of the Creator This is the means that the Father in His Soveraign Wisdom made use of And it 's this the Apostle meaneth when he saith That He made peace that is ours having pacified His own Justice and quenched all the burning of His wrath against us 'T is by the Sacrifice that JESUS CHRIST offer'd on His Cross that this miraculous change was wrought This precious blood contented the Justice of the Father and the odour of this Divine Burnt-offering sweetned His Spirit and of severe and inexorable as He was rendred Him propitious and favourable to us Instead of fulminating His avenges He tenders us the arms of His love and no man is so wretched but He is ready to receive him provided he accept the promise of His mercy with an humble faith It is not long since that upon one of the Texts foregoing we treated of the reality the worthiness and necessity of this Satisfaction by which the Lord JESUS made our peace with the Father through the shedding out of his blood on the Cross and the voluntary suffering there for us and in our room the curse which our sins deserved Therefore we will dispense with our selves for speaking more of it at this time and to conclude the Exercise will content our selves with the noting briefly upon each of the three Points explained the principal heads of Consolation and Edification which they contain And here dear Brethren which shall we most admire the goodness of the Father and the will He had to raise us up from our fall and to reconcile us with the whole Creation whose hatred and aversion we had incurred or His unspeakable wisdom in the ordering of this great work and in the means he
groaned repair this disorder Comfort her with your pious tears whom you have sadded by your vain pleasures Break with the world Have no more commerce but with the children of GOD. Remember you have the honour to be the body of JESUS CHRIST How is it that you have no horrour at defiling in the ordures of sin and vanity those members which are consecrated to the Son of GOD washed with His blood sanctified by His word and baptized with His Spirit The Church beside this purity of life which its edification requireth of you at all times doth particularly at the present demand of you the succour of your alms for the refreshment of its poor members Their number and their necessity encreaseth daily Let your charity be augmented after the same proportion Let it relieve the indigence of some let it allay the passions of others let it extinguish enmities and hatred among us all Let it seek not only to those whom you have wronged but even to them that have offended you without cause that henceforth you may truly be the body of the LORD His Church holy and unblamable having no spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing patient and generous in affliction humble and modest in prosperity crowned with good works and the fruits of righteousness to the glory of our great Saviour the edification of men and your own salvation Amen THE XIV SERMON COL I. Vers XXV XXVI XXVII Vers XXV Of which Church I have been made a Minister according to the dispensation of GOD which hath been given me towards you to fullfil the word of GOD. XXVI Even the secret which had been hid from all ages and generations but hath now been manifested to His Saints XXVII To whom GOD would give to know what are the riches of the glory of this secret among the Gentiles which is CHRIST in you the hope of glory THE Church of our LORD JESUS CHRIST is the fairest and most glorious State that ever existed in the world a State formed in the counsel of GOD before the creation of the heavens founded on the cross of His Son in the fulness of time governed by the Father of eternity enlivened by His Spirit the most prized of His Jewels the last end of His works and the only scope of all His marvels It 's a State not mortal and corruptible as those of the earth but firm and everlasting situate above the Sun and Moon and see all other things roul under its feet in continual change without being subject to their vanity It 's the only society against which neither the gates of hell nor the revolutions of time shall at all prevail It is the House of the living GOD the Temple of His holiness the Pillar of His truth the dwelling-place of His grace and glory Whence it comes that one of the Prophets long ago contemplating it in spirit cried out transported and in extasy Honourable are the things Psal 87.3 that are spoken of thee O City of GOD. But among its other glories this in my opinion is none of the least that GOD would employ the hands the sweat and the blood of His Apostles for the erecting of it It is for the Church that He made and formed these great men It 's for the same that He poured into their souls all the riches of Heaven And as they had received them for the Churches service so they laid them out faithfully and cheerfully in it yea to such a degree that they counted it a great honour to suffer on its occasion They blessed the reproaches that they received for edifying of it We lately heard S. Paul the most excellent of those divine men protesting that he rejoyced in his sufferings and afflictions for the Church and now in the Text we have read he goeth on and saith that he is the Minister of the Church What and how admirable must that happy Republique be whose Minister and servitor S. Paul was the greatest of men one of the master-pieces of Heaven and the wonder of the earth But beside his designing to justifie by these words the joy he had in suffering for the Church as Minister of it He would also found the liberty he took to make remonstrances to the Colossians and authorize his doctrine against the errors which Seducers were sowing among them For this cause he enlargeth on this matter and magnifieth his Ministry First he represents unto them the foundation of it namely the Call of GOD and the object of it that is those towards he ought to exercise it and the end of it in verse 25. in these words I have been made a Minister of the Church according to the dispensation of GOD which hath been given me towards you to fullfil the word of GOD. After this in the following verse he extolleth the subject about which the labour of this ministry was to be to wit the word of GOD saying that it is the mystery which had been hid from all ages and generations but which hath now saith he been manifested to the Saints Lastly he addeth in the last verse the efficacy of this Divine secret towards the Gentiles and declareth in one wherein it consisteth namely in JESVS CHRIST our LORD He is the whole matter and substance of this great mystery GOD saith he would give the Saints to know what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles which is CHRIST in you the hope of Glory These are the three points which we purpose to handle in this action if the LORD permit the ministry of Paul the mystery of the Gospel and the riches of its glory towards the Gentiles The subject is great the time short and our abilities small May it please GOD to supply our defects by the abundance of His Spirit so powerfully strengthning and multiplying the words of our mouth in your hearts that notwithstanding their scantiness and poverty they may yet administer food for your souls even as sometime by the vertue of His blessing seven loaves and a few little fishes as you heard not long ago sufficed to satiate a great multitude As for the first of these three points the Apostle speaking of the Church doth say Of which I have been made a Minister according to the dispensation of GOD which hath been given me towards you to fullfil the word of GOD. Upon which we have four things to consider First the quality of the Apostles office which he termeth the ministry of the Church Secondly the the title to this office founded on the dispensation GOD had given him Thirdly the object of the execution of this office which he expresseth by saying towards you that is towards you Gentiles as we shall shew anon and in the Fourth place the function and the proximate end of this office which he declareth to us in those words to fullfil the word of GOD. Observe then Brethren first of all how this holy Apostle to express the office to which GOD had
His peace His Spirit His Holiness His consolation His life and His immortality But the Apostle doth not speak here of the riches of the glory of the Gospel in general and towards all He addeth particularly among the Gentiles Sure there is no sort of men whether Jews or Greeks but the Gospel sheweth forth riches of glory in them if they receive it Yet we must acknowledge that never-did its glory break forth with so much splendor as when it was preached to the Gentiles First that exceeding great and inexhaustible abundance of goodness and grace which the Gospel goeth fill'd up with did pour forth it self and if I may so speak overflowed all bounds in saving the Gentiles the most hopeless of all men when it raised them from this grave or rather from that abyss of misery wherein they had lain not four dayes as Lazarus in his Sepulchre but for four thousand years For this cause the holy Apostle comparing the grace of GOD in His Son 〈◊〉 15.8.9 shewed to the Jew with that shewed to the Gentile at His calling of each of them doth name the former Truth for that it was promised and the second simply and altogether Mercy Then again how very admirable was the vertue of the Gospel which effected that in a few dayes that the Law had not been able to do in so many ages The Ministers of the Law did compass Sea and Land and after all found it very hard to make one proselyte and with all their diligence for two thousand years that they toiled had not reduced so much as one Nation to the Service of GOD though they employed even sword and strength to that end when they could But the Gospel quite naked and without other weapons then its Cross brought unto GOD many a people converted from Paganism They were a sort of men that worshipped stocks and stones they lay plunged in a bruitish ignorance and in the most infamous vices there was a mixture in them of the stupidity of beasts and the wickedness of Devils Certainly to make so much as one of these a Christian to bring him out of this infernal pit 〈◊〉 and place him in the Church to make him of a slave of Satan a child of GOD was as an Ancient writing on this passage rightly says no less a miracle than if some one should suddenly change an unclean and deformed dog into a man and from the dunghil whereon he lay cause him to sit upon a royal throne It was truly therefore a great and an ineffable richness and abundance of glory for the Gospel to transform so speedily not a small number but hundreds and thousands of Pagans into so many believers And in this the Apostle secretly strikes at the false Teachers who would mix such a noble and glorious mystery with their feeble traditions as if it had not strength and vertue enough of it self to subsist without the succour of their inventions Finally he intimates in two words the ground of all this richness of glory that the Gospel hath which is saith he CHRIST in you that is to say that CHRIST whom they possessed and who dwelt in them by faith 1 Tim. 1.1 And he addeth that He is the hope of glory after the same manner that elsewhere he calleth CHRIST our hope that is He of whom we hope for highest glory and in whom we do infallibly find all the blessedness that we can either defire or expect It is not without design that he advertiseth them that JESUS CHRIST is all the fullness of the mystery of the Gospel He lays a foundation hereby for what he will more clearly tell them hereafter namely that it is in vain that the seducers would mingle the Ceremonies of Moses and the service of Angels with it All this great mystery begins and ends in JESUS CHRIST since it is no other thing 1 Tim. 4.16 as himself defineth it elsewhere than GOD manifested in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the world and received up into Glory that is JESUS CHRIST our LORD born put to death raised again glorified and set forth in the Gospel for us Such is the mystery whereof the holy Apostle hath spoken to us Judge now Beloved Brethren what grace GOD hath shewed us in communicating so rich and so admirable a secret to us Many Kings and Prophets have desired to see and hear it and not at all had the happiness Heaven and earth did sigh four thousand years after the blessing we possess But in the end only the last ages did obtain it The Jews saw the wonders of GOD but obscurely and through veils and shadows The Gentiles saw them not at all being covered with a disinal night living without GOD and without hope This divine mystery appearing at once in the end of times as a great light that shines forth sudainly from Heaven did dissipate the shadows of the one and dispel the darkness of the other changing by its vertue the whole face of the universe in a moment It hath particularly shewed the riches of its glory among us having brought our Fathers out of the horrours of Paganism which did once cover this whole Land Let us embrace therefore with all the affections of our souls this great and inestimable favour of the LORD's Let us keep it pure and uncorupted without immixing in it ought that 's alien to it It is not only sufficient for our happiness It is even rich and abundant in glory They that would stuff it out with Ceremonies and services whether of Moses's teaching or mans inventing as false Teachers heretofore did and our adversaries at this day do they understand not aright the inexhaustible opulency wherewith it overslows They obscure the resplendency of its heavenly glory by their additions they hide it and cover it again with the veil which JESUS CHRIST hath rent in sunder Let us say to such as propose them unto us We are contented with the mystery which GOD hath vouchsafed to manifest unto His Saints It sufficed for their bliss It will well suffice for ours We do not desire any other riches than those which it aboundeth with or any other glory than that which it shines withall It is enough that this JESUS CHRIST who fills it up is in us the hope of true glory There is no need to associate with Him either Moses or Angels or Saints But Faithful Brethren the securing of this mystery from the errors of superstition is not all For the conversing of it pure among us and placing it in that glory which is due to it there must be a putting far away the filth of vices and of carnal and earthly passions GOD hath not lighted up this great Sun among you that ye should continue to live ill and do the same works in such a blessed light as are done in darkness Far be it from Him He hath discovered to you the mysteries hidden
triumphed of his enemies in himself or by himself that is according to the ordinary stile of Scripture by his own strength and virtue he being raised from the dead and gloriously lifted up to Heaven by the potency of his own arm But I say in the second place that there is no absurdity at all in attributing these things to the very death of our LORD understanding them as we ought spiritually and mystically And without doubt it is much more fluent and clear to refer the last words of this verse to the Cross of our Saviour of which the Apostle had spoken immediately before he fastned the obligation to the Cross having spoiled Principalities and Powers over whom he triumphed on it that is on the Cross than to take it of our LORD himself and say that he triumphed over his enemies in himself which is frigid and harsh and obscure Say we then with the greater part of the Modern and with the more knowing and illustrious of the ancient Expositors that it is on the Cross our Saviour spoiled Principalities and Powers and that it was there also he publickly made a shew of them and triumphed of them I confess if we look upon him as suffering on that execrable tree amid the scoffs and sarcasms of the Jews in the lowest degree of his exinanition Flesh will find in him nothing less than victories and triumphs But you know likewise that this mystery must not be judged of by the senses of the flesh 'T is faith alone that 's able to discover and contemplate the wonders that are in it Now if you open the eyes of Faith you will easily perceive that JESUS hath spoiled all hostile powers on the Cross and that it is with this weapon properly that he surmounted those strong and potent Tyrants and took from them all the instruments of their violence and made a prey of all their riches For to say true that harsh and cruel dominion which the Devil exerciseth in the world is not founded upon any thing but sin If this pest had not infected us all the forces of Hell though they were a thousand times greater than they are could not have hurted us It 's upon our sin that this fierce Tyrant hath built all his power and it 's upon our ruins that he hath raised his grandeur For first if we were not culpable by reason of the sins we have committed the Justice of GOD would never have suffer'd this Executioner of his Judgments to trouble and prosecute us as he hath done It would not permit him so much as to open his mouth against us to accuse us But sin having provoked the wrath of GOD and his Law prohibiting access unto his Throne and pronouncing a curse upon us it 's evident that the same delivered up our persons to the evil Angels and gave them power to execute its judgment on us Again beside these evils which are termed penal and which could not terminate at last but in an eternal death the Devil did annoy men in another kind even by pushing them on to vice by his temptations and making them commit a multitude of sins some by means of avarice and others by the furies of ambition casting some into the excesses of luxury others into the disorders of drunkenness and glutny But it is sin also that gives him this power upon men to wit that Concupiscence which reigneth in them and which the Scripture calls the old man because it is the inheritance and succession and image of the first Adam It 's by this as by an handle that the Devil seizeth on them and trains them into such sins as he pleaseth Were it not for this he would have no hold upon them and each of them if he were exempted from it might say as our LORD did The Prince of this world cometh but hath nothing in me Now JESUS CHRIST hath abolish'd by his Cross both the guilt and the vices of men the guilt in that he bore the punishment thereof and satisfi'd Divine Justice for them and extinguish'd all the flamings of the Law and opened the Throne of Grace to every impenitent sinner Their vices in that he crucifi'd and destroy'd our old man on the Cross and mortifi'd all its lusts and discover'd its impostures Sure then it s by his Cross that he divested the Devils of the dominion they exercised over mankind having sapped and demolish'd all the foundations thereof by his admirable sufferings As for that which the Apostle addeth in the second place viz. that he publickly made a shew of those hostile powers this doth excellently well agree with his Cross For this shew signifieth nothing else but an extream confusion and ignominy as we have already intimated and who is there but knows that the evil Angels never receiv'd a greater than that was wherewith the Cross of our LORD and Saviour did cover them They thought to have overcome him and found themselves overcome instead of ruining his Dominion as they imagined they saw their own utterly overthrown And this was publickly done in the view of Heaven and Earth our Saviour having been crucified in the greatest City of the Orient by broad day and at the solemnity of the most sacred Festival the Jews had The Angels look'd on it from on high and never beheld any thing with more attention and astonishment Jews and Gentiles were spectators of it and Nature it self however mute and insensible sufficiently shew'd that it took part in it shutting if we may so say its eye through the horror it had to see its Creator suffer But fear not poor Creatures The shame and confusion will wholly remain to our Enemies Our Sun will soon come out of this Eclipse and his suffering is the salvation not the ruin or damage of the Universe In fine the Apostle's further assertion in the last place that our LORD triumphed over these hostile powers on the Cross is easily verifi'd also For Origen as an Ancient said There were two crucified persons on that Cross the one JESUS CHRIST who was nailed to it visibly voluntarily and for a short time only the other the Devil invisibly fastned to the same Cross and to his great regret and for ever in as much as this Cross of our Saviour hath destroy'd his life and power having given him that deadly blow whereof he will never recover Faith seeth upon the Cross above the Son of GOD combating and conquering for us and it sees beneath all the bad Angels put in chains vanquished and in vain raging under his feet Yet do I ingenuously confess that to speak properly the resurrection and ascension of our LORD have more analogy with a triumph than his death which doth rather resemble a conflict But it 's a very common manner of speech to attribute the name of an effect to the cause which produced it It 's in my opinion principally in this sense that our Saviour triumphed of his enemies on the Cross because the
follow it Amen The End of the Second Part. SERMONS OF M R. JOHN DAILLE ON THE EPISTLE OF THE Apostle S T. Paul TO THE COLOSSIANS THE THIRD PART CONTAINING An Exposition of the two last Chapters in Eighteen SERMONS LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst 1671. The Author's Epistle Dedicatory TO MONSIEUR Monsieur de Rambovillet LORD OF LANCEY and of PLESSIS-FRANC SIR THese Sermons will not be new to You there having past so little time since you heard them at Charenton no doubt but you will know them at first sight The support they then found in our holy Assembly emboldens them now to present themselves in publick Perhaps it had been better to rest contented with that favour which our people shew'd them and not publish them once more in this other form For beside that the eye is much more delicate than the ear and the defects of a discourse are far more easily observ'd on paper where they abide than in the air where they do but pass there is further a great difference between an Auditor whom devotion doth oblige to hear you and a Reader who does owe you nothing The one would think he should sin against Piety if he deny'd you his attention The other doth you a favour in heeding you and may examine you without a crime The one's judgment is half made for you whereas the other's is at its full liberty These reasons would have with-held me from hazarding the edition of these small Books if the matter had wholly depended upon my opinion But the desires of my friends and the intreaties of the Book-seller interposing in it their violence hath forc'd my modesty Yet I should have had vigour and firmness enough to defend my self against it if the question had been simply of my self and my reputation For the present age being so polite and so illuminated as the most eloquent tongues and the best fashioned penns can hardly content it I well know that to please it there is need of graces and perfections which I do not possess But neither is that the thing I seek since of my weakness and the Calling wherewith GOD hath honoured me having competently secured me from such a passion That which made me yield to the too favourable will of my Friends is the interest of Christian souls which they laid before me and the service they believ'd this Book might do them The success will inform us whether they had reason to promise themselves so much from it For my part the thing being as yet uncertain I held my self obliged to give place unto their judgment and to prefer the profit which they imagine the faithful may receive from my poor labours before any other consideration And if it be temerity to hope the same at least it is not a crime but a laudable affection to desire it Of one thing Sir I am well-nigh assured that you will not dislike the gift I make you of this third and last part of my work For to say nothing of that sweetness of spirit and that obliging nature which every one observes in you and not to consider divers testimonies which I have received of your good will towards me in particular I am confirm'd in this opinion by your piety well known in our Church both by the excellent fruits of your charity in the ordinary course of your life and by the services you have sometime done our whole flock in the Office of an Elder while you executed it among us with much edification and praise Perswading my self therefore Sir may it please you that you will receive this small present with your usual goodness and facility there remains not else but that I pray GOD to conserve you with your worthy and well-born Family in health and prosperity daily augmenting on you His most precious blessings both spiritual and temporal I beseech you to continue me the honour of your good graces and to do me the favour to believe that I passionately am SIR Your most Humble and most obedient Servitour DAILLE From Paris Apr. the 1. 1648. SERMONS ON THE THIRD AND FOURTH CHAPTERS OF THE Epistle of the Apostle St. Paul TO THE COLOSSIANS SERMON XXXII CHAP. III. Verses I. II. Verse I. If then ye be risen again with CHRIST seek the things which are above where CHRIST sitteth at the right hand of GOD. II. Mind the things which are above not those which are on the earth DEar Brethren If the study and practise of true holiness which consists in the love of God and our Neighbour had filled as it ought the hearts and lives of Christians they would never have amus'd themselves in those minute devotions and carnal ceremonies wherewith superstition hath alwaies fed and doth still to this day feed the World This second sort of services was not invented and introduced in Religion but to be a supply in defect of the other For man well knowing that the Majesty and Beneficence of GOD obligeth us to serve Him and the charms and tentations of the earth turning away his heart from the legitimate service we owe Him which is that of a true and real sanctity that he may not appear empty in the presence of this soveraign Deity he presents it instead of that which it requireth of us with certain corporeal childish and spurious devotions which for that they are of our own invention are naturally pleasing to us Accordingly they are commonly called satisfactions because they are performed to content GOD and pay Him for the omission of what was due to Him An evident sign that if men had fulfill'd their duty there would have been no need of their busying themselves in these other exercises Hence there proceeded at the beginning those abstinences from certain meats and those distinctions of daies and that worshipping of Angels which some seducers would have set up among Christians in the very daies of the Apostles From the same source also issued afterward the stations the xerofagies and other disciplines of the Montanists and of divers hereticks that sometime disturbed the ancient Church In fine from this very original have sprung the observances and voluntary services of Rome those Orders and Rules of so many Monks as do now a-daies fill the World quadragesimal rites fasts and vigils auricular confession pilgrimages whippings feastivals jubilees chappelets and fraternities with a multitude of such other devotions which have overwhelmed Christian Religion We may confidently say there would never have been recourse to such things if mortification of the old man if true piety towards GOD and true charity towards their neighbour had exercised and continually taken up the affections and whole life of Christians So likewise you see their greatest Zealots confess that their rules and disciplines have no place in Heaven where holiness is perfected and never had less on earth than among Christians of the first age that is the best and most holy all these humane devotions being evidently sprung from a relaxing of the piety
afford the Colossians since Tychicus left him in prison at Rome that is in the mouth of the Lyon as himself speaks in another place Dear Brethren it is true the Apostle did abide still in that sad estate for that time and it 's true this was it the Colossians were in pain for But yet these two messengers had many things to say unto them that were proper to mitigate their trouble and to ease their pain first that the Apostle was still alive safe and sound as Daniel otherwhile in the den of Lyons nay that he was not without hope of being set at liberty Then again and which is the principal that is faith and piety were so far from being weaken'd by this rude tentation that they were become more firm and lively then ever shining in this tryal as fine gold in the furnace that instead of being afflicted at it himself he comforted others the spirit of GOD continually maintaining Christian joy and peace in his heart and this tribulation and conserving the same fresh and full as otherwhile the bush of Moses in the midst of the fire And lastly that if his body was bound yet the Gospel was not so the Apostle with an high and invincible courage frankly preaching in his irons and changing by a Divine miraculousness his prison into a School of JESUS CHRIST opening too by the efficacy of his example the mouths of many brethren to preach the word boldly without fear his whole affliction serving by the providence of GOD to a much greater advancement of the Gospel Phil. 1.12 as himself saith elsewhere This relation as you see was very proper to consolate the hearts of the Colossians not to speak of the knowledge and capacity of Tychicus in the things of the Kingdom of Heaven which furnished him abundantly wherewith to do these faithful people this good office in representing to them the doctrine and the promises of our LORD and Saviour the necessity and utility of the cross 2 Cor. 4.17 the life and the crowns to which it leadeth us and that eternal weight of an excellent glory which this light and transient affliction worketh for us and the like intimations of which the whole Gospel is full For you may not imagine that this Tychicus and this Onesimus whom he sent them were simple messengers that had no other ability then to make faithful report of what they had seen and heard of St Paul's affairs They were two excellent persons endowed with great gifts of GOD and well instructed in the knowledge of him yea as it is certain of the one and very probable of the other called to the holy ministry And it further heighthens the Apostles charitable affection towards the Colossians that he would deprive himself for their consolation of the presence and assistance of two such persons at a time when they were so sweet and so necessary to him But his prudence appears no less in this choice then his affection and goodness First more generally in that he employ'd about this affair persons proper for the end for which he sent them And secondly in particular that one of the two whom he chose to wit Onesimus beside other qualities he had was a Colossian and therefore a person that should have the more credit with them as their own countryman It is true that Epaphras of whom he will afterward speak had the same quality But it seems that a particular consideration withheld the Apostle from employing him in this commission Even that he had already exercis'd the holy Ministry among the Colossians and preached that very Evangelical doctrine to them which was now troubled by false teachers as we understand by the first Chapter of this Epistle He then being interessed and as it were a party in the quarrel the Apostle do's very prudently in employing other persons namely Tychicus and Onesimus that so their faith and doctrine appearing conform to Epaphras's the Colossians might the more easily perceive that his was not particularly his own but in truth the LORD CHRIST's and his Apostles and that as the Scripture faith in the mouth of these two or three witnesses the word might be established But the Apostle to give them credit with the Colossians and render their Ministry fruitful to them advertiseth them of the good and recommendable qualities each of them As for Tychicus he calleth him his beloved Brother and a faithful Minister and Fellow-servant in the LORD titles as you see very honourable He qualifies him after the same manner in the Epistle to the Ephesians to whom he employ'd him in the very same sort as he doth here to the Colossians Whence it appears that this holy man was one of those extraordinary Ministers which the Scripture of the New Testament do's particularly stile Evangelists These were as aids to the Apostles assisted them followed them and were diversly employed by them according to the necessities of the Church sometime in one place sometime in another without being fixed to any particular flock as ordinary Pastors are and making no longer stay any where then the Apostles orders did require Such a one for instance was Titus whom St. Paul left in Crete to finis the erection of the Church Tit. 1.5 and afterward sent into Dalmatia to preach the Gospel there 2 Tim. 4.10 Such a one again was Timothy and Crescens and many others And truly the charge the Apostles had being of such a vast extent as to embrace the whole universe it is evident that it did of necessity require they should be assisted by such Helpers and inferiour Ministers who might be employed in such places as they themselves could not go to or tarry in Our adversaries to give you this intimation by the way do commit an errour in this matter when they apply to Bishops what they read in the New Testament of this sort of Ministers For it 's true indeed that the Evangelists were superior unto the common and ordinary Pastors of each Church and held the next place to the Apostles whose Lieutenants in a manner they were But it 's false that any such Ministers were or were to be in the Church after the Apostles decease Their Ministry was extraordinary and subsisted no longer then the Apostleship did for which properly it was instituted And hence it plainly appears that the Bishops of the Roman communion can by no means pass for Ministers of this order since they have each of them their Title or Diocess to which they are fastned and have no power to exercise their Ministry elsewhere whereas the Evangelists had no flock that was properly and particularly assigned them but were as general intendants who by the Apostles order and according to the necessities of Churches did transport themselves sometime to one and sometime to another unto countries and people very far asunder as you see by the example of Titus who having been employ'd in ordering the Churches of Crete when that was done came
case as none of Creatures do more need the offices of our Charity neither is there any object worthier of the affection and succour of a good and generous soul than innocence hated and oppressed unjustly therefore it is that the Apostle noteth here by name the Charity of the Colossians towards all the Saints He joyneth these two Vertues together Faith and Charity because in effect they are inseparable it being neither possible nor imaginable whatsoever error list to say of it that man should believe and truly embrace GOD as his Saviour in JESUS CHRIST without loving Him and His neighbours for His sake or that he should love Him sincerely without believing in Him He puts Faith before Charity not for that it is more excellent on the contrary he elsewhere openly giveth the advantage unto Charity but because it goes first in the order of things requisite to salvation It is the blessed root whence Charity springs forth 1 Cor. 13. and all other Christian Vertues It is the foundation of the spiritual building the Gate of the Kingdom of Heaven the first fruits of the workmanship of GOD and the beginning of the second Creation As in the old Creation Light was the first thing He created so in the new one Faith is the first thing He produceth which the Apostle divinely expresseth to us elsewhere 2 Cor. 4.6 GOD saith he who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of GOD in the face of JESVS CHRIST After the Faith and Charity of the Colossians the Apostle adds in the third place the Happiness that was kept for them in the Heavens For the hope saith He which is reserved in Heaven for you Some knit these words with what he had now said of the Faith and Charity of the Colossians and understand that these faithful people laboured with alacrity in the exercise of these Vertues for the hope they had of the celestial Crown and reward according to what the Apostle saith elsewhere of Moses that He chose rather to be afflicted with the People of GOD Hebr. than to enjoy for a little time the delights of sin and esteemed the reproach of CHRIST greater riches than the treasures of Aegypt because saith he he had respect to the recompence And he teacheth us in general of all those that come to GOD that they must believe that GOD is and that He is a rewarder of them that seek him Ibid. v. 6. And from hence it followeth not at all either that our works do merit the glory of Heaven or that our affection is mercenary If we should not hope but for what we merit our hopes would be very miserable But knowing that GOD is faithful and constant we hope with assurance for the bliss which He of His meer grace promiseth us and the less we merit it the more love we conceive towards GOD who giveth it to us and the more acknowledgement and service ought we to render Him for the same And for this gratuitous salary which He promiseth us we look not on it as a prey after which we hunt and without which we would have no love for the LORD but as an excellent evidence of His infinite goodness as a testimony of His admirable liberality that love of GOD which shines forth in it is the thing pleaseth and ravisheth us most of all and which enflameth our faith our zeal and our affection to the service of so good and amiable a LORD though then we should bind what the Apostle saith of the Charity of the Colossians with the hope they had of the heavenly glory there would be nothing in this but what were conform to Evangelical Truth Yet it seems to me more simple and fluent to refer it to the third Verse where he saith that He giveth thanks to GOD for the Colossians having understood their faith and charity for the hope He addeth now which is reserved in Heaven for you For to consider the condition of these believers on the earth it seems there was no great cause to congratulate them for their faith and charity the afflictions which they drew on them rendring them in appearance the most miserable of men But though the flesh make this judgement of it the Spirit that seeth above visible things the Crown of glory prepared for the faith and charity of the faithful holdeth them for the happiest of all Creatures congratulates them and rendreth thanks to GOD for the inestimable treasure he hath communicated to them I know saith the Apostle that your piety hath it's tryals and exercises in this world But I forbear not to bless the LORD affectionately for that He hath given it to you I know the bliss that is prepared for you on high in the Sanctuary of GOD. He takes the word Hope here as often elsewhere for the thing we hope for to wit the blessed immortality and glory of the world to come I confess we possess it not yet for hope is the expectation of a good to come Rom. 8.23 That we are saved saith the Apostle is in hope but hope that a man seeth is not hope for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for But this good though absent and to come is as assured to us as if we had it already in our hands The Apostle shews it when he addeth that this Hope is reserved in Heaven for you It is a treasure which GOD hath set apart having fully prepared it already keeping it faithfully for us in His own bosome Whence it is that we make an assured account thereof for He hath deposited it in the hands of JESUS CHRIST in whom is hid our life and immortality so as if we make an assured account of things which a man of probity and honour keepeth in trust for us how much more certain should we be of the life and glory to come seeing GOD hath put it for us in the keeping of so faithful and powerful a depositary The place where this rich treasure is kept deposited for us confirms yet more the hope and excellency of it to us for saith the Apostle it is reserved for us in the heavens Fear not ye Faithful Your bliss is not on earth where the Thief steals or infidelity and violence make spoil where time it self ruineth all things where Crowns the best establisht are subject to a thousand and a thousand accidents Yours is on high in the Heavens in the Sanctuary of eternity lifted up above all the odd variations and inconstancies of humane things where neither our changes nor the causes that produce them have any access But this same place sheweth you besides the excellency and perfection of the bliss you hope for inasmuch as all celestial things are great and magnificent Weakness poverty and imperfection lodge here below Heaven is the habitation of glory and felicity In fine the Apostle toucheth briefly in the
his Brethren presented him GOD be gracious unto thee my Son Gen. 43.29 From such sentiments do flow those benedictions which we are wont to pronounce upon persons that are imployed in things beneficial and useful whether natural or civil as to instance with the Psalmist when we see the busie Reapers of a fair Field in Harvest time and say The blessing of the LORD be upon you Psal 129.8 we bless you in the name of the LORD But if this kind of natural beauty and perfection doth engage our affections and good wishes to the subjects in which we perceive it the gifts of divine grace which are incomparably more excellent should much more lively touch us my Brethren and kindle in our hearts greater flames of love and of desire for those that possess them For as high as Heaven is above the Earth and as much as eternity is preferable to time so much advantage have the beauties and perfections of Grace above those of Nature If therefore we judge rightly of them and estimate them according to their worth it cannot be that we should see them shine out in any without running to them and fastning forthwith on them as holy and as happy persons An eminent example of this motion of Christian Charity we have in our Text for the Apostle St. Paul here sheweth us he no sooner understood by Epaphras's report the Colossians faith and love but his soul was presently seized with ardent love unto them and his absence hindring him from giving them other evidences of it he incessantly presented prayer and earnest suits to GOD for their persevering and perfiting in piety that is for the continuation and the perpetuity of their happiness The summ of his desires for them is contained in three Verses as they evidently relate to three sorts of benefits for he wisheth them first in the ninth Verse the benefits that respect perfect knowledge of the truth next in the tenth those that respect the exercise of sanctity and finally in the eleventh such as concern perseverance in faith and patience in afflictions For present we will meditate only on the first of these three Articles remitting the two next to another action And for this cause saith the Apostle we also since the day we heard it cease not to pray for you and to crave that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding For right understanding this Text we will consider in it three particulars by the help of the grace of GOD which we implore for this effect First The Motive of the Apostle's prayers Secondly Their form manner and quality and in fine which is principal and most important the subject of them that is what He requested of GOD in His prayers As for the Motive that induced the Apostle to pray for the Colossians He signifies it to us in these first words And for this cause since the day we heard it we cease not to pray for you For these words sending us back to the precedent Verses with which they have a tye do shew us that the knowledge which the Apostle had by Epaphras's relation of the faith of the Colossians towards JESUS CHRIST and of their charity towards the Saints of their heavenly hope and of their other spiritual graces whereof He spake afore that this knowledge I say having filled Him with love towards them made Him continually pour out His Vows and prayers before GOD for the compleating of their salvation I confess the affection they bore Him in particular and whereof He maketh mention in the Verse immediately preceding contributed something also to this care he had to pray for them But it 's principal cause was their piety and sanctification that they had the first fruits of the Spirit and the beginnings of the Kingdom of Heaven Seeing the foundations of the Gospel and of the building of GOD so happily laid and established among them He beseecheth the Supream Master and Architect of this spiritual work to finish it and powerfully set the last hand to it The same reason made Him in like manner present His prayers to GOD for the Ephesians as he testifies at the beginning of the Epistle Ephes 1.15 16 17. he wrote them using almost all the same words that serve Him here Having saith he to them heard of the faith you have in the LORD JESVS and the charity you have towards all the Saints I cease not to render thanks for you making mention of you in my prayers that the GOD of our LORD JESVS CHRIST the Father of glory would give you the Spirit of Wisdom and of Revelation Faithful Sirs learn by this example of the Apostle to pray the LORD principally 〈◊〉 those in whom you see the work of His Spirit appear Rejoyce ye for their faith and their zeal and love them for the honesty and purity of their life But remember that the first and principal office which your charity oweth them is the continual succour of your prayers Object not that they are too far advanced to need them During the course of this life the progress of a Christian is never so great but the prayers of his Brethren are necessary for him It 's then when he is most advanced that the enemy maketh most attempts and layeth most ambushments for him The nearer he is to the Crown the more need he hath of divine assistance As there is none in the lists whom we favour more with our wishes acclamations and applauses than those that come nearest to victory so in this carrier of the Gospel we should affectionate and accompany with our vows prayers and benedictions those most that run best and are nighest to the mark of the heavenly calling We never make more wishes for a Vessel than when after a long and dangerous voyage it comes upon our Coast or we see it ready to arrive in the Haven When the believer having escaped the shelves and tempests of the world steers the true course of Heaven and makes if we may so say with Oars and Sails to the Port of Salvation 't is then we should redouble our wishes and benedictions for his safety 't is then we should fear more than ever lest some mishap marr all his progress and bereave him of the reward of his pains But let us now consider the manner and the quality of the Apostle's prayers Since the day saith he that we heard these good news we cease not to pray GOD and to make request for you First He did not pray alone We cease not to pray saith he where you see he speaks of more praying with him comprising in this number Timothy whom he had expresly named already at the beginning of this Epistle and the other faithful that were at Rome with him Being put on by one and the same charity animated with one and the same desire they all lifted up their hearts and Votes to GOD together with the Apostle for the
into Apostles which beats down the proudest fierceness and preserves invincible the most despicable weakness which hardneth the bodies of it's humble Warriours as Steel maintaineth them in the flames and confounds with their lowness the fury of Elements of Men and of Devils For this is that the Sacred Writers ordinarily call glory even an abundance of beauty of power and perfection so rich as it over-bears our senses and makes to bend under it all the vigour of our Spirits reducing them to admiration and astonishment And St. Paul somewhat frequently useth this word in this sense as when he saith that CHRIST was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father that is by His great and unspeakable power Whence it appeareth that the Vertue which converteth us to GOD and that which conserveth us in His grace is not a common and ordinary might but an invincible efficacy which nothing can resist Seek it not in your own nature Christian soul seek it in GOD and acknowledging your weakness ask of Him the remedy of it If it betide you to resist the enemy and to remain victorious in any combate render all the glory of it to this Soveraign LORD without attributing ought of it to your self But the Apostle sheweth us in what follows what is the use and effect of the succour which the glorious power of the LORD giveth us who strengthneth us unto all suffering saith he and patience of mind with joy These are the two productions of the Spirit of GOD in a faithful soul patience and long waiting in which principally our strength consisteth These are as the two hands of Heaven that sustain us in perils and keep us from sinking under the weight of those evils wherewith we often find our selves surcharged And though both the two are of a very like nature yet they have each of them something particular Sufferance beareth the evil without bending submitting to it at its inflicting humbly and standing firm under this rude load The Spirit patient or long-waiting for so the term used here in the Original doth properly signifie lends it the hand afterward and attendeth without murmuring for deliverance from the evil it suffers and for enjoyment of the good it hopeth Sufferance respecteth the very weight and heaviness of the affliction The long-waiting of the patient Spirit respects the duration of it These two vertues are absolutely necessary for a Christian For without them how should he support either the chastisements of GOD or the persecutions of the world How should he be firm in the exercise of other vertues to discharge the Offices of them against the impediments that thwart them every hour Tertull. de patient Patience saith an Ancient is the Superintendant of all the affairs of GOD and without it it is not possible to execute His commands or to wait for His promises 'T is it that defeateth all its enemies without toil It s repose is more efficacious than the motion and action of others 'T is it that makes healthful to us things of their own nature most pernicious It changeth for us poisons into remedies and defeats into victories It rejoyceth the Angels it confoundeth Devils it overcometh the world It mollifieth the hardest courages and converteth the most obstinate hearts It is the strength and the triumph of the Church according to the saying of the ancient Oracle By keeping you quiet and by rest you shall be delivered your strength shall be in silence and in hope But the Apostle to shew us what this patience is to which the Spirit of GOD formeth His children saith that it is with joy This is the true Character of Christian patience The Hypocrite suffers sometimes but it is murmuring And the Philosophers yere while made a great shew of their patience but it was only an effect either of their stiffness or of their stupidity which was no wayes accompanied with the joy which the Holy GHOST sheds into the souls of those that suffer for the name of GOD. Not that they are insensible or that they receive the evil on them without grief But if the evil they suffer do sad them this very thing rejoyceth them that by the grace of their LORD they have the strength and the courage to suffer it and do know that their suffering shall turn to their good and that from these thornes they shall one day reap the flowers and fruits of blessed immortality To which may be added the sweetness which is then shed into their heart by the vive and profound impression of that only Comforter who communicates himself to them on such occasions more freely than ever and can by the ineffable Vertue of His balm their most bitter wounds This is that Dear Brethren which we had to say to you on this Text of the holy Apostle Let us receive his doctrine with faith and religiously obey his voice He sheweth us what our task is here below Let us acquit our selves in it with care GOD of His Grace hath raised up among 〈◊〉 a great light of knowledge let us employ it to its true use and walk with it in such a sort as may be worthy of so holy and merciful a LORD whose name we bear Let this great Name awaken our sences and affections let it pluck them off from the Earth and elevate them to Heaven where He reigneth who hath given it to us Let this Name put into our hearts a secret shame to do or think ought that may be unworthy thereof Faithful Sirs remember you are Christians as oft as flesh or earth sollicits you to evil Put the world by 'T is not to please it that you have been regenerated by the Spirit from on high The World is so unjust so humorous and so changing that 't is impossible to content it See in what pain and torment they continually live that attempt it And though you should compass it the success would cost you dear By pleasing the world you would displease your own Conscience the contenting whereof is infinitely more important to you than any thing else But with GOD it is quite otherwise His will is constant and still the same without any variation or change Nothing is pleasing to Him but what is just and reasonable Your Conscience will find in it its entire satisfaction and never reproach you for having served so good a Master Not to alledge to you that the World after you shall have killed your self to serve it will pay you only with ingratitude and contempt as experience daily shews us whereas the LORD will magnificently reward the care you shall have taken to do His will comforting and blessing you in this world Crowning and glorifying you in the other If you demand what must be done to please Him the Apostle shews you in a word Fructifie saith he in every good work As often as the LORD shall cast His eyes on this Vineyard let Him see it still laden with good fruits Let Him never
have cause to complain of it as He yerst did of that of Israel I expected saith He it should bring forth grapes and it brought forth wild grapes Sure He hath had no less care of ours than of theirs He hath planted it in like manner with choice Vines He hath also environed it with a brave and admirable hedge He hath watered it with the rain of His Clouds and made the beams of His Sun of Righteousness to shine on it and may justly say of it What was there more to be done to my Vineyard that I have not done to it Be we not ungrateful to so sweet a Master Let not our sterility confound His expectation Let our fruits be answerable to His cares and our secondity to His husbandry Let there be no soul barren and unprofitable among us Let each one Fructifie of that He hath each one improve the dressing and sap the LORD hath given us Let the sinner present Him his repentance the Just his Perseverance the Rich his Almes the Poor his Praises Old Age its Prudence Youth its Zeal Let the Knowing abound in Instruction the Strong in Modesty the Weak in Humility and all together in Charity And since it is the good pleasure of our Heavenly Father that we have here divers combats as none may live piously without persecution prepare we also for this other part of our duty and supplicate the LORD with the Apostle that He do strengthen us with all strength according to the power of His glory that He do give us a firm and unmoveable patience to persevere constantly in the Holy Communion of His Son so as neither the promises nor the threatnings of the World neither the Lusts nor the fears of Flesh may be ever able to debauch us from His Service O GOD our task is great and we are feeble Our enemies are Giants and we but Dwarfes Therefore thy self work in us merciful LORD the work which thou commandest us Perfect thy glorious power in our weaknesses Strengthen our hands and confirm our hearts that we may combat vigorously and atchieve great things in thy Name and after the trials and tentations of this life may one day receive in the other from the Sacred and Sweet hand of thy Son the glorious Crown of immortality which we breathe after So be it THE V. SERMON COL I. Ver. XII XIII Vers XII Giving thanks unto the Father who hath made us capable to partake of the inheritance of Saints in light XIII Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of His well-beloved Son DEar Brethren Though the first Creation of man be a most illustrious master piece of the goodness power and wisdom of GOD this great worker then making Adam of the dust and forming Him after His own image to live and reign on earth in a soveraign felicity Yet it must be confessed that our restauration of JESUS CHRIST is much more excellent and admirable For whether you consider the things themselves which have been given us or have respect to the quality of those to whom they have been communicated or to what the LORD did for the communicating of them you will see that the second of these two benefits of His doth surpass the first every way The first gave us an humane nature the second hath communicated to us a divine one The first made us a living soul the second maketh us a quickning spirit By the one we had an earthly and animal being by the other we receive a spiritual and heavenly one The one seated us in the garden of Eden the other elevateth us to the Heaven of Glory There we had a Lordship over living Creatures and the Empire of the Earth here we have the fraternity of Angels and the Kingdom of Heaven There we enjoyed a life full of delight but infirm and depending as that of other living Creatures on the use of meat and drink and sleep Here we possess one full of vigour and strength which like that of blessed spirits is sustained by its own vertue without need of other nourishment The one was subject to change as the event hath declared the other is truly immortal and immutable and above the accidents that altered the first The advantage of the first man was that he might have not dyed the priviledge of the second is that he cannot dye But the difference will appear no less in the disposition of the persons to whom the LORD hath communicated these benefits if you attentively consider it I confess that dust which GOD invested with an humane form merited not a condition so excellent and received it from the meer liberality of the Creatour But if it were not worthy of such a savour at least it had nothing in it which rendred it uncapable thereof in the rigour of justice Whereas we not only have not merited the salvation which God giveth us in His Son but have over and above merited that death which is opposite to it If the matter upon which the LORD wrought in the first creation of man had no disposition for the form He put in it so neither had it any repugnancy thereto whereas in our second Creation that is in our redemption by JESUS CHRIST He findeth in us souls so far from complying with His operation that they potently resist it So you see that to effect the first work He employed only the single out-going of His will and word whereas for creating the second it was necessary He should shake the Heavens send down His Son to earth deliver Him up to death and do miracles that astonished men and Angels It 's with this grand and incomprehensible mysterie of GOD that the Apostle entertaineth us my Brethren at this time in the Text which you have heard For having finished the exordium that is the Preface of this Epistle and intending from thence to enter on His principal subject to slip the more gently into it after representing to the Colossians the Prayers he made to GOD for them he now adds the thanks he offered Him for their common salvation and by this means opens the entry of his dispute touching the sufficiency and inexhaustible abundancy of JESUS CHRIST for saving of believers which leaves no need of making any addition to his Gospel Giving thanks unto the Father saith he who c As this Text consists of two verses so it may be divided into two articles In the first the Apostle giveth thanks unto GOD for His making us capable of entring into the inheritance of His Saints In the second is proposed what he hath done to make us capable of this happiness namely delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of His beloved Son These are the two points we will handle if it please the LORD in this action humbly beseeching Him to guide us in meditating so excellent a mysterie and touch our hearts so vively with it as that it
horrible is our corruptness The most adore their fetters and quit not the darkness of Egypt and horrours of Sodom but with regret To fetch them thence GOD must descend from Heaven and take them by the hand as yer-while Lot and his Children You know He doth deliver them from this black power of darkness when He dissipates their errour and ignorance causing His Sacred truth to shine into their hearts after so vive and so glorious a manner as they discern it notwithstanding all the illusions of Satan and the world Then the Empire which this impostor exercised over them vanisheth away They wonder how so weak clouds could hide from them so resplendent a light and this new flame or to say better this new Sun discovering to them the true countenance of things the false colours wherewith the Devil and the Flesh endeavour to disguise them have no more force upon them They then see as uncovered and nakedly the turpitude and horrour of idolatry of superstition and of Vice and on the other side clearly perceive the verity the beauty and the excellency of piety and sanctity This deliverance is absolutely necessary for having part in the inheritance of Saints unto which none is received who is not a child of light and hath not renounced the servitude of errour and of vice And I profess it is much to have shook off the yoke of darkness and be gone forth from its power Yet this is not all If the LORD should stop there we for all this should have no share in the divine glory of the heavenly Canaan It is of absolute necessity for admission there that we bear the marks of the Lamb and at our going out of darkness enter into His Holy light For this cause the Apostle after he had said that the Father hath delivered us from the power of darkness immediately addeth and translated us into the Kingdom of his well-beloved Son For though in effect these two benefits of GOD are inseparably joyned together yet notwithstanding they do constitute two different graces It is his goodness and not their nature that hath thus tyed them each to other Had not the counsel of His love otherwise ordered it might have come to pass that a man should be delivered from the power of darkness and yet not enter into the Kingdom of His Son but remain in such a liberty as Adam's was before he fell But now since no man hath remission of His sins without becoming a member of JESUS CHRIST by Faith and since all that have this honour are predestined by the good pleasure of the Father to be conformed to the image of their head and consequently to have part in His Kingdom and Glory there must of necessity be entring into his Kingdom or an eternal abiding under the power of darkness The Apostle by the Kingdom of the Son of GOD means that very thing which the Evangelists ordinarily call the Kingdom of Heaven that is the Church of our LORD JESVS CHRIST that blessed City builded by the ministry of the Apostles and Prophets upon the Son of GOD it 's only eternal and unmoveable foundation the state of the Messiah the new republique of GOD His royalty and priesthood It is very pertinently that he calleth it here the Kingdom of the Son of GOD because the inheritance of Saints being the matter in hand which none but a child of GOD can have part in this informeth us that we may not obtain this right and title but in the Kingdom of JESUS CHRIST alone since none but He the true and proper Son of GOD is able to convey divine adoption to us and it is for a like reason that He stileth Him the well-beloved Son of GOD even to the end we might confidently hope for all the grace and glory which the Father promiseth us inasmuch as we pertain to His wel-beloved Him in whom He is well-pleased whom He singularly affecteth and as perfectly as Himself His eternal delight and love Besides I doubt not but the Apostle had some aim to heighten the grace which the Father hath shewed us by this apt and clear opposing of the Kingdom of His well-beloved Son into which He hath transported us to that power of darkness the Empire of His enemy from which He hath delivered us GOD brought us into this blessed Kingdom when He gave us the faith of His Gospel the righteousness of His Son and the consolation of His Spirit signing us with the badges of His House and sealing us with His holy Baptism But the word transport or translate which the Apostle useth represents also the strength and vertue of this action by which GOD hath brought us into the Communion of His Son I acknowledge the operation of this grace of His is sweet and pleasant for it perswadeth it gaineth the heart it is accompanyed with the very great joy of him that receives it But withall it is potent and efficacious Nothing can resist it There is no rebellion nor hardness of heart but it subdueth Joh. 6.44 it draweth men to JESVS CHRIST as Himself expresseth it or as His Apostle saith here it translates them into His Kingdom This is that Beloved Brethren which we had to deliver you for the expositon of this Text. I wish that the same spirit which yerst indited it to the pen of the Apostle would please to engrave it in the lowest depth of our hearts with the point of a Diamond in uneffaceable Characters that we might have it day and night before our eyes that we might carefully peruse it and consult it in all the occurrences of our life This meditation would suffice to conserve in a constant and happy exercise of Christian piety and to guard us from all that disturbeth our sanctification or our comfort First it would enflame us with an ardent love of GOD and excite us to a sprightful and sincere acknowledgement of His benefits For what love what respects and what services do we not owe to this Soveraign LORD who hath vouchsafed to display so much mercy and goodness upon us who hath called us from that eternal death wherein we were sunk with the damned unto the possessing of the inheritance of His Saints Who hath made us meet to enter into the fruition of His light Who by a miracle of His power and wisdom hath plucked us from the yoke of the Devil hath delivered us from the unrighteous and murtherous power of darkness and to compleat His graces hath translated us into the blessed Kingdom of the Son of His dear love Who from brands of Hell that we were hath changed us into live and lightsome Starrs in His Firmament of dead doggs hath made us first-fruits of His Creatures and from slaves of Demons transformed us into Angels and from the accursed state of Satan raised us to the Sacred Fellowship of His Son to be henceforth His free-men His brethren and His members O love O goodness incomprehensible How have we
in like manner hath not only the shadow or the appearance of the authority and power of his Predecessor He hath the whole substance and reality of it Gen. 5.3 Thus it is that Moses saith Adam begat Seth his son in his own likeness and after his image He signifies thereby that Seth had a nature the same in all things with Adam's own Now the question is in which of these two senses must we take the word Image when the Apostle saith here and also elsewhere that JESVS CHRIST is the image of GOD. 2 Cor. 4.4 The very quality of the subject in question sheweth us so clearly that we must apprehend it after the second way and not the former as even those that quarrel it dare not say that JESUS CHRIST is an imperfect image of His Father For where is the Christian ear that could suffer a blasphemy so horrible and so contrary to all the Scripture Sure when the Apostle saith of our LORD that He is the image of GOD he thereby meaneth quite another thing then what he signifies elsewhere when he saith that man is the image of GOD. For intending here to exalt the LORD JESUS and to demonstrate that His dignity is so high as capacitateth Him to save us He would ill suite this design if he attributed nothing to Him but what agreeth to any man whoever he be And yet if you do not understand it that JESUS CHRIST is a perfect image of GOD the Apostle will affirm no other thing of Him here then he asserts elsewhere of man when he saith he is the image of GOD. Beside the Apostle's end the thing it self he speaks of doth evidently shew it us also For our LORD informeth us that He who hath seen Him hath seen the Father and that Joh. 14.9 12.45 who beholdeth Him beholdeth Him that sent him Where is the pourtrait of which it may be said that he who hath seen it hath seen the subject which it representeth It 's clear this is not found but in such an image as is most perfect and containeth fully in it all the being of its original Whence it appears that it is in this sense that JESVS CHRIST is the image of GOD. And to make us conceive it the better the Apostle hath a passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews the scope the terms and sense whereof have very much resemblance with this here there he saith Heb. 1.3 that JESVS CHRIST is the resplendency of the glory of His Father and the Character or engraven Stamp of His person Terms exceeding elegant and expressive and such as clearly decide this case that the LORD is the image of GOD in another manner than man and that the same glory which shineth in the Father is respendent also in the Son and that the same nature which is in the person of the one is likewise in the person of the other Say we therefore according to the Analogie of this Doctrine and the reason of the thing it self That JESUS CHRIST is the image of GOD His Father but a perfect one yea the most perfect that an image may be An image which exhibiteth unto us and representeth not the colour or the shadow but the truth and substance of the Deity The Scripture our only guide in these high mysteries teacheth it clearly And to aid you in the comprehending of it though the GOD-head be most simple in it self exempt from all mixture and composition yet speaking of it according to the weakness of our understanding to which GOD hath not disdained to accommodate Himself in His word we will consider three things of Him the nature the properties or qualities which Divines commonly call His Attributes and His works As for His Nature it is most perfectly represented in JESUS CHRIST forasmuch as He hath really and veritably the same being and same substance with GOD the Father As a child whom we call the image of His Father hath the same nature with Him being truly of mankind as He. The Scripture teacheth us this truth in very many places where it saith Joh. 1.5 Tit. 2.13 Rom. 9.5 1 Cor. 10.9 Joh. 12.41 that JESUS CHRIST is GOD that He is the true GOD. Our great GOD and Saviour GOD blessed above all Jehovah yerst tempted by the Israelites in the desart He whose glory Isaiah saw in the vision described at the sixth Chapter of His Prophecy It layeth down the same thing also as often as it represents Him to us a due object of our adoration saying that all ought to honour Him as they honour the Father Joh. 5.23 Heb. 1.6 and that the very Angels worship Him it being evident that according to Scripture there is nothing but a nature truly divine to whom adoration may be lawfully given But the LORD JESUS no less perfectly represents the Father in His Properties then in His Nature The Father is eternal so is the Son and Isaiah calleth Him upon this account The Father of eternity Before Abraham was He is Joh. 8.58 He was from the beginning with GOD and before the world was created even then He was in the bosome of the Father His love and His delight The Heavens shall perish but He is permanent The Heavens shall wax old as a garment and be folded up as a Vesture and be changed But JESUS is the same Heb 1.11 12. and His years shall not fail The Father is immutable without ever receiving any alteration or change Heb. 13.8 either in His being or in His will The Son is the same both yesterday and to day and for ever The Father is infinite filling Heaven and earth neither is there any thing within or without the world that boundeth the presence of His being Joh. 3.13 The Son is in like manner infinite He is in Heaven whiles He speaketh to Nicodemus on earth He is here below on earth in our hearts and in our assemblies the same instant that He is fitting at the right hand of the Father in the highest room of the Universe and though the Heavens contain that body and humane nature which He did assume yet they do not enclose His Majesty and all-present Divinity The Father hath a soveraign understanding knowing all things present past and to come The Son is Wisdom it self He knoweth all things and if He say somewhere that He knoweth not the day of Judgement this is not to be understood but in respect of His humane nature and not in respect of His divine intelligency Rev. 2.23 He soundeth the reins and knoweth the heart of man a quality which the Scripture noteth to us as the character and specifique mark of the knowledge of GOD asserting that there is none but He only who knoweth the hearts of men The Father knoweth Himself and no man or Angel to speak properly ever saw Him The Son so perfectly knoweth Him that He hath even declared and revealed Him unto men The Father is almighty and
doth whatsoever He will The Son hath all power in Heaven and in Earth and there is nothing but is facile to Him The Father is super-eminently good hating evil and loving rectitude and justice The Son is the Saint of Saints entirely separate from sinners goodness and justice it self The Father is merciful and inclined to pity The Son is the bottom of His compassions The Father maketh His Sun to shine on and His Rain to bedew even the men that blaspheme Him The Son dyed for His enemies and prayed for those that crucified Him In short the Father hath not any other essential quality but the Son hath it likewise and in the same measure with the Father I come to His Works Certainly the Son Himself informeth us how perfectly He represents the Father in this respect Joh. 5.19 saying in general that what thing soever the Father doth the same doth the Son likewise The Father created the Universe The Son founded the Earth Heb. 1.10 Joh. 1.3 and the Heavens are the work of His hands All things were made by Him and without Him nothing was made of all that was made The Father conserveth the world by His providence the Son sustaineth all things by His mighty word The Father hath set up the Princes and Magistrates who govern mankind Prov. 8.15 and there is no power but of Him It 's by the Son that Kings Reign and Princes decree justice The Father saved and redeemed the Church the Son is our righteousness our wisdom and our redemption The Father loved us and delivered up His Son to death for us the Son gave Himself a ransome for our sins If the Father raised up the Son the Son also raised again His own Temple when the fury of the Jews had beaten it down If the Father quicken the dead the Son quickneth them likewise and the last judgment the punishing of the wicked in Hell the glory of the Faithful in Heaven and all that refers to it is the work both of the one and the other The Father hath elected us so likewise hath the Son Joh. 13.18 I know saith He whom I have chosen It is the same in all the other actions and operations of the divine nature If you read the Scriptures exactly you shall not see any of them attributed to the Father but is likewise attributed to the Son And as for that right and soveraign authority which accreweth unto GOD over all things from these great and high qualities and operations this glory shineth in the person of the Son as it doth in the person of the Father If the Father be Judge of the earth King of ages and Monarch of the world the Son is in like manner the LORD of glory the head of the Armies of Heaven the Prince of men and Angels the Judge of all flesh If the Name of the Father be great and dreadful that of the Son is above every name which is named in this world or in the world to come If all creatures both superiour intermedial and inferiour do owe a soveraign homage to the Father and cast down themselves before Him adoring His Majesty with the profoundest respect they are capable of so it is clear that before JESUS every knee doth bow both of things in Heaven and things on earth and things under the Earth the Father Himself proclaiming when He bringeth Him into the world Let all the Angels of GOD worship Him So you see Dear Brethren that the LORD JESUS is truly the image of His Father since He hath and discovereth perfectly in Himself the Nature the Properties and the Works of the Father An admirable a singular and a truly Divine image which possesseth the whole form of its original without any variation and faithfully and naturally representeth all the features of it in their true and just greatness measure and nature I confess there are among men sons that resemble in some sort their Fathers but there are none in whom such resemblance is comparable with that of the Son of GOD to His Eternal Father If our Sons represent our nature and manners it is always with some difference which a piercing and a clear-sighted eye may easily observe and after all there are none that in their life do express the lives of their fathers totally entire with every one of their actions and operations Whereas the Son of GOD is a most complete image both of the nature and the life of His Father if we may speak in this manner of these mysteries all the works of the one whether small or great being also the works of the other This sacred Verity taught here by the Apostle overthroweth two heresies which though contrary and opposite to one another did sometime equally trouble the Church of GOD. I mean that of the Sabellians and that of the Arians The former confounded the Son with the Father the latter rent them on sunder Those took from the Son His person these His nature For the Sabellians did dogmatize that the Father and the Son were but one and the self-same person who according to the divers wayes and ends of his manifestations did assume sometimes the name of Father sometimes the name of Son So as in their account it is the Father who suffered on the Cross and it 's the Son who sent Him that suffered St. Paul breaketh their errour by saying that JESVS CHRIST is the image of the Father For no one is the image of himself and how great and exact soever the image's resemblance of its original be it 's of necessity that it be another subsistence than its original A child hath the same nature with the Father whose image it is said to be but nevertheless the person of the Father is one and that of the child another Since then the Apostle declareth here and elsewhere that JESVS CHRIST is the image of GOD that is to say of the Father we must either desert His doctrine or acknowledge that JESUS CHRIST is another person than the Father But if you distinguish their persons it doth not follow that you must divide their nature as did the Arians who made it their position that the nature of the Father is another than that of the Son the one increated and infinite the other created and finite These are two shelves which we must equally avoid steering our course straight in the midst shunning on one side the confusion of Sabellius and on the other the division of Arius JESVS CHRIST saith the Apostle is the image of GOD His Father He could not be the image of Him if He were one same person with Him He could not be His Perfect image if He had a nature differing from the nature of the Father How should He represent His eternity if He had been created in time How His immensity if He had a limited essence How His Majesty and glory if He were but a creature Let us then hold fast this truth full and entire
Creatures and expresseth the relation He hath to them by saying that He is the first-born of every Creature This passage hath diversly exercised the Hereticks Those of them who deny that the Son of GOD subsisted at all in nature before His being born of the Holy Virgin perceiving that these words place Him before all the Creatures to salve their errour do corrupt the word Creature and will have it signifie in this place the faithful that believed the Gospel of our LORD Wretched unbelief to what extravagancies dost thou lead miserable men For what deliration can produce a thing more empty within and even less apparent without than this exposition First it rendreth the Apostles conception frigid and impertinent If you believe these people the Apostle advertiseth the Colossians that JESUS CHRIST was born before men believed what He Preached Is not this a great secret and highly conducing to the Apostles design Then again who gave them the Authority they assume to change the sense of the words of GOD St. Paul saith that the LORD is the first-born of every creature By what right do they restrain a subject of so great and vast extent to the faithful alone The faithful say they are created anew of the LORD Who doubts it St. Paul teacheth us Eph. 2.10 2 Cor. 5.17 that they are the workmanship of GOD created in JESVS CHRIST unto good works and elsewhere that if any one he in CHRIST he is a new creature But it followeth not thence that the word Creature put purely and singly as here must be taken for the disciples of JESUS CHRIST and His Apostles only The Scripture never useth so to speak As for the eighth Chapter to the Romans where they pretend that the Apostle signifieth the faithful alone by all the Creatures which sigh Rom. 8.21 and are in travel together this is a new dream no less absurd than the former it being clear by all the circumstances of the passage that those creatures there are not the children of GOD but of another sort St. Paul plainly distinguisheth them saying of those that they also shall be delivered Rom. 8. â—2 that they may have part in the glorious liberty of these and that not only they but we also that is all the faithful who have the first-fruits of the Spirit do sigh in our selves All those Creatures are no other than the Universe the Heavens and the Elements which shall one day be set free from the vanity they now groan under and which they were made subject to by sin That which they alledge out of the third of the Revelation is no whit more to the purpose JESUS CHRIST stileth Himself there the beginning Rev. 3.14 or principle of the Creature of GOD. But nothing obligeth us to take the creature of GOD in this place for the faithful alone any more than in the other The LORD meaneth all the things which GOD hath created either in the first or in the second world He being the principle of the one and the other according to what he had said in the same Book generally and indefinitely I am Alpha Rev. 1.8 and Omega the first and the last Besides though the Creature of GOD should signifie the faithful in this place yet it would not follow that the words every Creature here must be taken for the faithful alone as when the Scripture calleth them sometimes men of GOD it followeth not from thence that to signifie the faithful alone a man may say All men The term of GOD is put there for an adjective Epithet as the Grammarians call it according to the use of the Holy tongue the creature of GOD that is a divine and celestial creature a quality which evidently restraineth the sense of the word Creature to which it is annexed unto the most excellent kind of creatures that is the faithful Whereas St. Paul saith here simply every creature without adding of GOD or divine or any other word that might contract and limit the signification of the general term Creature to one of its species only that is the faithful Rejecting therefore these mens gloss as impertinent and contrary both to the Apostles scope and stile we say that by every creature he meaneth what the Scripture and all the languages of men do ordinarily signifie by these words namely created things the Heavens and the Earth and all that in them is But here rise up the Arians another sort of Hereticks who infisting upon this interpretation conclude hence that the Son of GOD is a creature since He is called the first-born of them alledging that the first-born is of the same nature with His brethren and adding to fortine their pretention that in effect the supream wisdom Prov. 8.22 which is no other than the Son saith in the Proverbs that GOD created it in the beginning of His wayes before He made any of His works which is nothing else as they affirm but what St. Paul saith here that the Son is the first-born of every creature and they adjoyn also that which is said in the Epistle to the Hebrews Heb. 3.2 that JESVS CHRIST is faithful to Him who made Him that is as they pretend to GOD who created Him But GOD forbid we should rank Him with creatures to whom the Scripture ascribeth the glory of having created them all and unto whom it commandeth us to give that supream adoration which is due to GOD alone and not to any creature The Apostle in this very place which they abuse putteth a most evident distinction between the Son and other things For whereas he calleth them creatures he saith of the Son that He is not the first-created as should have been said if He were of their order but the first-born an evident sign that He received His being of the Father by a divine and ineffable generation and not by creation As for that which they cite out of the Proverbs not to urge another exposition of it the original text importeth that GOD possessed wisdom in the beginning of his ways as our Bibles have well rendred it and not that He created it as the Greek interpreters have unrightly taken it And whereas St. Paul saith in the Epistle to the Hebrews that GOD did make CHRIST he meaneth not that He Created Him a conceit which would be quite beside his purpose but that He ordained and set Him up High Priest in His Church 1 Sam. 12.6 Even as when Samuel saith that GOD made Moses and Aaron He signifieth that He established them in the charges they bore among His people And it 's in this sense we must understand St. Peters language in the Acts Act. 2.36 that GOD hath made JESVS both LORD and CHRIST that is hath ordained Him unto these great dignities And so from these passages it duly follows that the Son of GOD was called the Annointed and setled in His office of Mâ—diator which we do confess but not that His
Divine nature was created which is that we utterly deny In fine for the words of St. Paul in this place some answer that by saying JESVS CHRIST is the first born of every creature he only signifieth that He was born before all creatures and perhaps it would be very difficult that I say not impossible to refute this exposition Yet there is another which I judge more fluent and indeed more suitable both to the scope and to the sequel of this Text It is to understand by the first born the owner the Lord and the Prince of every creature That which the Apostle addeth For by Him were created all things in Heaven and in earth perfectly accordeth with this sense it being clear that the creation of things is a true and solid title to that power and Lordship which GOD hath over them Why is the Son of GOD the Lord of every creature Because there is not any of them but He did create the same and it is good reason He should dispose of them and govern them at His pleasure since He gave them all the being or life that they have And that the word First-born may be taken to signifie Master and Lord is evident both by examples in Scripture and by the reason of the thing it self For the LORD promiseth in the Psalmes to make David the first-born of the Kings of the earth that is Psal 89.27 as every one seeth to make Him Master and the chief of Kings it being evident that to speak properly he was not their elder brother being neither brother unto other Kings nor more aged than they Isaiah saith also in His Prophecy Isa 14.30 the first-born of the poor to signifie the chiefest poor those that if I may so say do carry away the prize for poverty though otherwise they were born neither before others nor of the same family with them But the passage in Job is more remarkable than any other where mention is of the first-born of death He is meant Job 18.13 that hath the power and the administration of death the Angel and Prince of death and as the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks he that hath the dominion of death The reason of this manner of speaking is also throughly evident For the eldest-born by the law and custome of most Nations heretofore were and to this day are the principal of the family the heads and in a manner the LORD 's as well of their brethren as of the slaves and goods whence hath come this kind of language even the putting eldest or first-born to signifie the head the Lord and the Master We say therefore that it is in this sence we must understand the Apostles saying that CHRIST is the first-born of every creature to wit the Master and Lord of them Which no way inferreth that himself is a creature Lords not being always of the same extraction and lineage with their subjects but most frequently of another very different And as it would be ridiculous reasoning to conclude that he that hath the dominion of death is death it self under the colour that Job termeth him the first-born of death so is it most impertinent arguing to infer that the LORD is a creature because the Apostle saith here that he is the first-born of every creature We have a passage exactly parallel with this in the beginning of the Epistle to the Hebrews where the Apostle saith Heb. 1.2 that GOD hath established His Son heir of all things by whom also He made the worlds There you see first that he expresseth the Lordship which JESUS CHRIST hath over all the creatures by a figurative word stiling Him the Heir of them For that the word Heir was taken by the ancients to mean Lord and Master Instit l. 2. tit 19. S. ult the Civilians themselves have observed And secondly you see further that the Apostle after the same manner as in the Text doth found the dominion which JESUS CHRIST hath in the whole universe upon His being the Creator of it For it is this he meaneth when he saith that by Him GOD made the worlds Be it then concluded that this Primogeniture of the LORD JESUS over every creature is nothing else but that glorious and soveraign Empire which He hath over the whole world and every of its parts by the right of creation being the supream and absolute LORD thereof as He that brought all creatures out of nothing and gave them every degree of that being which they have Thus you see Dear Brethren that which we had to say to you for the exposition of this Text. Let us make our profit of it and extract the uses it containeth and the succour it may give us against sin and errour First it furnisheth us with what to answer those that blame us for having no images among us Tell them that JESUS CHRIST the only most perfect image of GOD sufficeth us This is an image we securely honour without fear of offending GOD because it is a true one and shews us to the life and in reality all the perfections of the Father whereas the others that are offered us are the work of mens hands inventions of their superstition and images not of GOD but of their own vain imaginations Their very being visible doth discover their falsity since that GOD is invisible For to represent an invisible nature by colours is to do much worse than if you should paint whiteness with a cole or light with darkness Your images O adversaries are dead and insensible destitute of the advantages which nature hath given to the least and lowest animals Ours is alive and intelligent the source of life and wisdom Yours are incapable of seeing or rewarding the service you do them Ours knoweth our hearts and hath an infinite goodness and power For JESUS the image of GOD that we adore is the first-born of every creature the Soveraign Master of the universe Let us boldly address our most religious services to Him And since it is in Him that GOD manifesteth Himself to us have we Him still before our eyes seeking the true knowledge of GOD in Him alone There we shall see Him as He is But let this seeing by no means be idle He doth not set before us this most full-wrought table of His perfections which he hath drawn to the life in His CHRIST that we should unprofitably feed our eyes therewith but that we should imitate Him each one according to our small ability should express in our souls some draughts of that perfect goodness and sanctity which shineth so gloriously in Him and become every of us by little and little a pure and lively image of our LORD Consider how He was obedient to the Father charitable to men helpful to the afflicted compassionate to sinners sweet and kind to enemies There is Christian the pattern of your life Follow these sacred examples Serve GOD like Him patiently bearing all that He layeth on you marching
The things that are in heaven and those that are in earth But he addeth yet another division no less general taken from the quality of the things themselves which all are either visible as the Heavens the Elements the Plants and the living Creatures or invisible as the Devils and the Angels and the souls of men And to the end none might imagine that the good Angels by reason of the excellency of their admirable nature were excepted from this number the Apostle makes expressest mention of them giving a touch at the false Teachers thereby who taught the worshipping of Angels as he will shew hereafter To refute this error he ranketh them by name among the things that were created by JESUS CHRIST and that depend on Him and were made for Him For there is no doubt but they are the holy Angels whom he calleth here Thrones Rom 8.37 Ephes 1.21 Dominions Principalities and Powers And he useth these words so often in this sense as in the Epistle to the Romans and to the Ephesians and elsewhere that I wonder not a little at some Expositors who give them here another reference There is great likelihood that this diversity of names doth signifie a great difference among the Angels Indeed there is no sort of Creatures in the whole Universe but an admirable variety is found among them that Soveraign Wisdom which hath formed them having pleased to set forth the infinite riches of His power and understanding in the diversity of those ranks qualities and functions by which He hath distinguish'd things which are otherwise of a like yea of the same nature To pass by the rest who can reckon up the differences of estates of conditions of temperaments and inclinations which are observed among men All of them have the same nature none have the same form nor the same countenance We may not doubt but that there is somthing semblable among the Angels and that in their intelligible World there is some image of that variety which renders our visible one so beautiful and so mervellous The Apostle to express this difference of their Orders useth the names of those divers degrees which are found in the States and Polities of the world where are Thrones that is Monarchs and Kings Dominions that is Dignities which though very high yet art beneath Kings as Dukes and Archdukes then Principalities as the Governors of Cities and Provinces and lastly Powers such as inferior Magistrates are whom the Latines in the Apostle's time did call by the very name that we read here and it is yet in use * Il podestà among the people of Italy From whence in my opinion it may be with reason concluded that there is a diversity of charges and Ministries among the Angels If you ask me what the Orders of them be and how many and what the difference between them is and whether it consist in qualities of their nature or only in the employments GOD hath given them I am not ashamed to confess unto you freely with * Exchirâ—d c. 58. S. Augustine that I cannot tell the Scripture which alone could inform us having declared nothing about it to us As for that which the Roman Schools do sound withal upon this matter of nine Orders of the Celestial Hierarchy it is but the fansyings of a man that having overmuch leisure amus'd himself to fashion the same with the least unhandsomness he could in imitation of some fond Jewish imaginations of like nature and to make them weigh the more did set them forth under the holy and venerable name of Dionysius the Areopagite the frigid frothiness of his pufft-up stile his quirks and his vanity and his whole air being infinitely far from the gravity modesty and simplicity of the Apostles Scholars do sufficiently shew that he is nothing less than what he affirms himself to be and indeed long since some testimonies urged out of his Books by Hereticks Concil tom l. 855. Ep. Joan. Maroâ—ia Ep 〈◊〉 A. C. â—32 have been rejected by the Orthodox as Apocryphal and uncertain and such as were not S. Denys's at all Laying aside therefore beloved Brethren the empty and vain Authorities of an humane spirit let us content our selves with what the Apostle hath told us in this subject and let us diligently make our profit of His Divine instructions Let us learn from them first to adore the LORD JESUS as Creator of the Universe and to acknowledge by this work of His His true and eternal Divinity Let no objection or carnal difficulty let no Heretical subtilty ever pluck up this sacred truth out of our hearts Let us oppose the Apostl's Authority against all that men and Devils can say or invent to the contrary And admire we constantly the goodness and the wisdom of the Father who gave us such a Saviour as our necessity did require For none was able to repair us but He that first made us and the hand alone which created us could restore us to that blessed state from whence we had fallen by sin And since GOD hath given us for Mediator and the Prince of our Salvation the same whom this great frame had for its Creator let us embrace Him with a firm belief Be we content with His fulness and regard none beside Him in heaven or in earth The Angels how sublime soever their nature and their dignity be after all are but creatures not to speak of men who beside the infirmity of their being were all conceiv'd in sin But it is not enough to confess that the LORD JESUS is the Creator of all things and to acknowledge Him for our only Saviour and Mediator this Faith must work and fructifie in us it must spread it self into all the parts of our life must sanctifie our affections and actions arm us against all the temptations of the enemy comfort us in affliction and assure us against every fear For since JESUS hath created this grand Universe since Thrones and Dominions are the work of His hands since it is by His Providence that this All subsisteth in the state it is who seeth not with what Devotion we should serve so Puissant a Monarch This earth that beareth you this air that you breath these heavens that shine on you these plants and these living creatures that nourish or refresh you and these Celestial Powers which encamp about you all these things are productions of His power and presents from His bounty In like manner your own nature this body so skilfully composed and that soul which enliveneth it are works of His Providence which neither were created nor do now subsist but by Him Is it not reasonable that you should consecrate to His glory what you do hold only from His Grace Remember also what the Apostle addeth That as all things were created by Him so they were made for him Do not frustrate your Creator of His intentions Live for His glory since it was for it you were created For
towards His Church For He enliveneth all the members of it from the greatest even to the least and gives them not the power and authority only as Princes give their subjects but the very strength and ability to act communicating to each of His faithful ones such a measure of His Spirit as is necessary for sensation and motion and all the other functions of heavenly life as St. Paul teacheth us in the Epistle to the Ephesians and more at large in the First to the Corinthians Eph. 4. 1 Cor. 12. Moreover the Head hath this advantage above the rest of the body that it is of a more exquisite constitution and temper than the other members according to the rule that nature prudently observes in general which is to frame those things best that are designed to the choiâ—est employments Kings and Captains do deserve also the name of Heads in this respect their dignity being very high-raised above their subjects But their advantage in this particular is nothing in comparison of that which JESUS CHRIST hath above His Church not only by His being incomparably more holy more wise and more powerful than any of all the faithful but especially in that He is GOD blessed for ever Finally as you see the Head is placed highest in the body of man this scituation being necessary for its commodious exercising the functions of its government a thing that Kings and Princes imitate dwelling ordinarily in Palaces and sitting on Thrones raised above the houses and seats of their subjects so JESUS CHRIST hath this advantage but in a far greater degree sitting on high in the Heavens upon the Throne of GOD above the whole Church both militant and triumphant And whereas He conversed sometime on earth that was only for a while and by dispensation for the good of His body which obliged Him to do it even as the head boweth down it self somtimes when the necessity of any of its members doth require it But the proper and natural place of JESUS CHRIST is that lofty Sanctuary of immortality where He now appears in highest glory from thence governing by His Spirit all the parts of this mystical body of the Church both those that are in Heaven and those that are yet on earth Thus My Brethren you see wherein this dignity of our LORD JESUS doth consist and with how much reason St. Paul expresseth it here and otherwhere by saying that He is the head of the Church Whence evidently follows what the Apostle also evidently says that the Church is the body of CHRIST For if JESUS CHRIST be call'd the Head thereof for having and exercising towards it all the functions and prerogatives of a natural Head towards its members it is clear that the Church must also be called His body since this whole Divine society depends on JESUS CHRIST and receives of Him all the light all the aptitude all the sense and motion that it hath Upon this doctrine of the Apostle we have divers things to consider before we pass any further First by fixing this position he timely fortifies the Colossians against that errour which we shall find Him expresly opposing hereafter the errour of those that would subject the faithful to Angels and to Moses introducing into the Church the worshipping of the one and the Pedagogy of the other For since the Son of GOD is the Head of this sacred society who seeth not that it ought to depend on Him alone that 't is to Him it oweth its obedience and service and of Him it ought to receive its discipline and guidance But it must also be observed that the Apostle giveth this title to JESUS CHRIST with a design to glorifie Him enroling it among the other praises of His Soveraign dignity Indeed since the Church is the most Divine society in the world since it is acompany of Kings of Priests and of Prophets the Assembly of the first-fruits and a new world much more excellent than the old a world immortal and incorruptible it is evident that to be the Head thereof is a quality more sublime then to have been the Creator and Prince of the Universe at first Whereby you see in the third place how unrighteous to say no more the rashness of those is who give this name to another beside JESUS CHRIST acknowledging a mortal man for the true Head of the universal Church Let them colour this usurpation how they will they shall not be able to justifie it This is evidently to despoil JESUS CHRIST of His royal robe and to take the Diadem from Him which none but He can bear They alledge that the Scripture verily communicates to others beside JESUS CHRIST the names of Pastor of Priest and of Teacher and of Light and such others It is true but it never gives that of Head of the Church to any but Him And the difference of these titles is evident the former signifying charges whereof the faithful do exercise some portion and some shadow whereas that of Head of the Church signifies the Supremacy which is incommunicable to any other but the Son of GOD. As you see that in a State the name of Prince and of Governour and Captain and others of like sort are not given to the King only they pertain to others also But no other may be called the Soveraign or the Head of the State besides Him without incurring the guilt of Sacriledge or Treason Yet they endeavour to excuse them and say they make the Pope but the ministerial and subordiate Head not an essential and soveraign one But this is nothing but words arising from their interest and not founded in the truth of things There is no Prince that would be satisfied with such language if any one of his subjects that had made himself the head and Monarch of His State should alledge for his excuse that he had no intention save to pass for a ministerial head In the nature of men whence this similitude is taken we see no bodies that have two heads of a different rank and if any such be found at any time they are accounted for monsters which cannot be said of the Church the most perfect master-piece of all the works of GOD. In a word it is not enough to say that the Pope is the ministerial head of the Church it must be proved We plainly read in Scripture that JESUS CHRIST is Head of the Church Let us believe it and adore Him under that quality But that there is another head in the Church be he visible or invisible be he ministerial or soveraign this we meet not with at all in the writings of the Apostles not to say that we meet with divers things in them wherewith such a doctrine is incompatible Faith is by hearing and hearing by the word of GOD. Let it therefore be permitted us to suspend our believing this other pretended head of the Church since we have heard nothing of it in the word of GOD. But that which the
Grace the same GOD hath given us one JESUS CHRIST alone the true Sun of righteousness whom He hath filled with all the treasures of wisdom and life that He might be as an exceeding abundant and inexhaustible fountain of joy and immortality whence are diffused upon all the parts of the new world which is created in righteousness and in holiness all the spiritual perfections and benedictions they have This is that Dear Brethren which the Apostle divinely teacheth us in the Text you have now heard wherein speaking of the LORD JESUS he saith it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell He represented to us in the precedent words the excellency of the Lord JESUS's person in that He is the Image of GOD the Lord and the Creator of all things visible and invisible then next His dignity in that He is the Head of the Church the beginning and the first-born from the dead concluding that He hath the first place in all things The Apostle now produceth the reason of it taken from the decree and will of the Eternal Father For it was His good pleasure saith he that in Him should all fulness dwell And that we might discern the wisdom of the Father in this disposal of the thing he sets before us in the words following the work for the effecting whereof He defigned and sent His Son a work so great and so wonderful as it is evident that without this fulness which He caused to dwell in Him it was not possible it should be brought to an end For it is by Him that He purposed to reconcile and actually did reconcile all things in Himself as well those that are in Heaven as those that are in earth And for the more full discovery of the greatness of this Divine master-piece he toucheth also at the means by which it was accomplished to wit Peace which he made by the blood of His Son's Cross It was not possible to reunite Heaven and Earth and reconcile these parts of the Universe that were divided each from other but by making peace by extinguishing their hate and removing the cause of their enmities Neither was it any more possible to procure this peace otherways then by the shedding of a Divine blood and the offering up a sacrifice of infinite worth and by the intervention of a Mediator who should have in him all the perfections and excellencies of the parties that were to be reconciled The greatness of the work shews us the quality of the means that was requisite to finish it and the quality of the means doth regulate the faculties and nature of the person that was necessary to do it To reconcile earthly and heavenly things in GOD there was need to make peace To make peace there was need of a blood and a sacrifice of infinite value To offer such a sacrifice there was need of a person in whom all fulness dwelt that is who had in Him fully and perfectly all the graces and excellencies of Heaven and Earth Certainly then it was an order highly reasonable and most worthy of the Divine wisdom of the Father to make all fulness dwell in His CHRIST for the reconciling of Heaven and earth by making peace through the blood of His cross That we may have the fuller view of it for His glory and our own consolation we will consider by His grace in this action those three points that are distinctly proposed us in the Apostles Text. First the good pleasure of the Father that all fulness should dwell in CHRIST Secondly the work He hath wrought by the hand of His CHRIST thus furnished namely the reconciling of all things in Himself as well those that are in earth as those that are in Heaven and finally the means by which He hath executed this great design to wit making peace by the blood of the cross of His well-beloved Son For a right understanding of the first of these three points we must enquire at our entrance what this fulness is which the good pleasure of the Father hath made to dwell wholly in CHRIST especially seeing that Interpreters do not well accord about it Some referring it to the Divinity of our LORD others to the graces which were accumulated on Him after His manifestation in our flesh It is certain that the word Fulness is variously taken in the Scripture and not to speak of other senses it hath which are beside our purpose it is somtimes referred to the greatness of things and signifies their just their whole and due measure As when it is said that Saul fell on the earth to the fulness of his stature that is all along 1 Sam. 28 2â— so as his whole body lay stretcht out on the ground and it is very likely that it is thus that St. Paul calleth the Church the fulness or the compleatness of CHRIST Eph. 1.23 forasmuch as being His body 't is in it that His just and due magnitude consisteth Without the Church He would be an Head without a body that is withot a magnitude and a stature proportionate to His supereminent Majesty It seemeth we might so take the Fulness mentioned in this Text even as signifying all the graces and excellencies requisite to the full and entire greatness that becomes the CHRIST of GOD but the word Dwell which is annexed to it doth not comport with it For it would be an harsh phrase and without example in any language to say that a man's stature dwelleth in him Upon the same consideration I exclude hence another sence which else would sute not ill with the matter I mean that which the term fulness hath when it is put for a full and whole measure and such as wanteth nothing We are to observe therefore beside what hath been said that the word fulness doth very commonly in Scripture set forth that which filleth any thing as when one Prophet calleth men and other creatures which the earth is full of the fulness of the earth and another the fulness of a City all the people Psal 24. â— Amos 6.8 Isa 4â— 10 that dwell in it and again another the fulness of the sea the Isles whereof it is full with all their inhabitants And because the forms of things as Philosophers speak their perfections and qualities do fill them up and give them all the beauty they have like as plants and living creatures are the ornament of the earth people the glory of Citys and Isles so many crownes of the Sea thence it comes that by a very elegant figure the graces and perfections of such or such a subject are termed the fulness thereof for that without them it would be empty and of such a condition as that rude and uncouth mass that Moses describeth in the beginning of Genesis the earth saith he was without form and void Gen. 1.2 before the LORD clothed it with these stately ornaments and filled it with that rich abundance which
Son is not Eternal and co-essential with the * As the whose Church believeâ— Fathers but created and made by the will and good pleasure of the Father For the Apostle doth not speak here of the original of the perfections that are found in CHRIST but of their being united and met together in one and the same subject I acknowledge it is by the good pleasure of the Father and by the order of His will that the Godhead of the Son dwelleth in the Mediator But it thence follows that this Godhead of His is an effect of the Fathers will It was before it filled the Mediator The same Father who by His will united it to our flesh for the making up together with that flesh the person of CHRIST had communicated it to His Son from all Eternity by a natural act of His Eternal understanding that is to say by a Divine Generation Now it is not in vain that the Apostle here advanceth this assertion That it was the good pleasure of the Father all fulness should dwell in HIS CHRIST But he doth it with design to * Or settle confirm our Consciences in the Religion of the LORD JESUS only For these Colossians as we shall see hereafter were tamper'd with by Seducers who mingled the Mosaical Ceremonies with the Gospel and the worshipping of Angels with the service of the LORD the Apostle therefore doth here timely fortifie these Believers against this error and that by two excellent Reasons the first taken from the dwelling of all fulness in JESVS CHRIST Poor men saith he what seek you for either in Moses or in Angels we have all in JESUS CHRIST There is no good no perfection nor excellency either in GOD or in the Creature but dwelleth in this Soveraign LORD Having Him we have no need at all to go unto others since in Him we find all The other Reason is taken from the Will of GOD the supreme rule of Religion the only thing that is sufficient to settle the agitation and natural distrust of our Consciences As for JESUS CHRIST saith he it was the good pleasure of GOD that in Him should all fulness dwell The Father hath set up Him to be the spring of our salvation But as for Moses and Angels we do not see that ever it was the will of the Father to give them such a dignity Dear Brethren now that our faith is fought against with the like errors let us arm it also with the same reasons If the Adversary send us to Angels and Saints let us answer him that the LORD JESUS sufficeth us that having Him we can want nothing since all fulness dwelleth in Him I will not enquire for the present what these Angels and Saints are whom you recommend to me whether they have indeed that merit and that righteousness and that authority which I need for the expiation of my sin and for opening the house of GOD to me How rich and how abounding soever you represent them to me I may let pass their store this CHRIST whom I embrace having all fulness dwelling in Him Let them be all that you please they will want however some part of that infinite plentifulness which overfloweth in our CHRIST And how zealous soever you be for their glory yet you durst not presume to say that all fulness dwelleth in them How great is your imprudence to go hither and thither a groping in pits and cisterns while you have near you such a living and inexhaustible fountain Grant that the worshipping of Saints is not criminal which yet it evidently is it is notwithstanding superfluous forasmuch as it hath nothing in it but we find the same better in the fulness of JESUS CHRIST But the other consideration which the Apostle sets before us here is of no less force That it was the good pleasure of the Father all fulness should dwell in His CHRIST My Faith yea our Adversaries attends on the will of GOD. This will is its object and its rule I cannot rellish either Doctrine or Service that is not conform thereto Tell me how you know it is the good pleasure of GOD that this fulness of merit and power which you ascribe somtimes to Saints departed somtimes to your Pope and his Ministers doth indeed dwell in them As for the LORD JESUS whom I adore and in whom I seek all my bliss the Father hath proclaimed from Heaven That He is His welbeloved Son His Scriptures declare That He hath committed all judgment to Him and That all fulness dwelleth in Him But as for those others whom you have taken for objects of your Devotion and to whom you have recourse for your salvation you cannot shew me any thing semblable of them Certainly then it must be vouched that all your Devotion in this behalf is but a Will-worship founded only on your own passion and the fancy of your Leaders not upon the good pleasure of the Father It is strange fire that hath issued out of the earth and not been kindled from Heaven Such as cannot without crime either enter into or be used in the Sanctuary of GOD. But I return to the Apostle who having said That it was the good pleasure of the Father all fulness should dwell in CHRIST doth add And by Him to reconcile all things in Himself both those that are in Heaven and those that are in the earth This is the great Master-piece of the good pleasure of GOD the end for which His will was that the fulness of all Divine and Humane perfections should be seated in CHRIST And this is that which the particle and used by the Apostle doth signifie It doth not meerly connect the two parts of his discourse but importeth moreover the consecution and the dependance of the latter on the former as if He had said It was the good pleasure of the Father that in JESUS CHRIST should all fulness dwell and so reconcile or to the end that He might reconcile all things by Him For all this fulness which the Father would that His CHRIST should have dwelling in Him was necessary for His effecting this Reconciliation There needed he should have the power and the holiness and the wisdom of the Divinity and together with it the humility and the obedience and the meritorious sufferings of the Humanity that he might finish this design He could not have been able to re-unite Heaven and Earth with less preparations Let us see then what this work is this Reconciling the Apostle speaks of of all things Terrestrial and Celestial in GOD by JESVS CHRIST It is clear by the Scriptures that JESUS CHEIST hath by His death reconciled men unto GOD so as He hath appeased His wrath and opened to us the Throne of His grace as the Apostle teacheth us in divers places and particularly in the Epistle to the Romans Rom. 5.10 11. 2 Cor. 5.18 where he saith That we have been reconciled to GOD by the death of His Son and
the other Even such is the case of true Believers and such as are but temporary Persecution and offence do not make the difference which is seen between them when the former do retain the Gospel and the others quit it This event only sheweth that the one were GOD's wheat and the others but chaff according to what S. John saith of Apostates They went out from us because they were not of us 1 John 2.19 that it might be made manifest that all are not of us The same is to be further seen evidently in the Parable of the Sower where the LORD saith expresly Mat. 13.13 19 21. that he that persevereth had heard the word and understood it and receiv'd it in an honest and good heart Whereas He saith of them who do revolt that one heard but understood it not another had no root in himself An evident sign that their disposition was different at first before the perseverance of the one and the fall of the others Whence appears how impertinent the Argument is which our Adversaries draw from the Apostacy of the latter to prove that the faith of the former may fail and on the contrary For if the wind carry away the chaff it doth not therefore follow that it shall also bear away the corn and if the storm beat down an house that 's planted on two or three stakes it is not to be said it may do as much to an House that 's founded on a rock If the blade that shoots forth and grows up suddenly in the sand without any bottom happen to wither at the first extreme heat that smites it this implieth not that the like may betide the corn which is deeply rooted in a good and fertile soil The other point which we have to observe is the assurance of true faith excellently represented here by the Apostle in these words which are full of a singular Emphasis If you continue in the faith being founded and firm contrary to what is taught in the Church of Rome that faith is in a continual agitation so as a Believer can have no assurance that he is for present in the state of Grace and much less yet that he shall persevere in it for the future In Conscience can it be said of these people as the Apostle saith here of the LORD 's true Disciples that they are firm and founded How may it be seeing they incessantly float in doubt and uncertainty and are miserablely in suspence between the hope of heaven and the fear of bell I pass by that other error of theirs which is yet more contrary to the Apostle's Doctrine namely their maintaining that the choicest faith may fail If it be thus how can it be affirm'd that those that have it are founded and firm Let us then hold fast the truth that 's taught us here and in divers other places of Scripture to wit that true faith abideth always and being founded on the Merit and the Death and the Intercession of JESUS CHRIST doth never fail The wind makes but the chaff to fly away it prevails not upon good grain It overthrows only the trees that are feeble and ill grounded It leaveth in their place those that stand upon good and deep grown roots And as an Ancient sometime said Tertul. de Paersc We may not account them prudent or faithful whom Heresie hath been able to change None is a Christian but he that persevereth to the end But I return to the Apostle who for the fuller Explication of this firm and not to be shaken faith which he requireth in us for the obtaining of salvation addeth further And if ye be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel Justly doth he joyn Hope unto Faith these two virtues being so straitly link'd together that they mutually succour each other and one cannot be had or lost without the other For first Hope is the suit of faith expecting with assurance the fruition of the the things that we believe so as when the perswasion that we have of them comes to totter it is not possible but the hope which was founded on it must come to ruine Again in the combats which we sustain for the faith hope is one of our principal supports while it is firm and vigorus in us it repelleth without difficulty all the strokes of the Enemy opposing to the fear of the evils wherewith he threatneth us and to desire of the good he promiseth us the incomparable excellency of the glory and felicity which we look for in the other world He that hopes for heaven cannot be tempted by the paintings and appearances of the earth For this cause the Apostle in another place compares hope to an Anchor which penetrating within the vail fastned and grounded in Heaven holdeth our vessel firm and steady amid the waves and agitations of this tempestuous Sea whereon we sail here below And it 's this in my opinion which the Apostle aims at here that the faithful might be established in the faith he willeth them to have still in their hearts the hope of heavenly bliss and never to suffer this Sacred and Divine Anchor to be taken from them They are in safety while it holds them fast But for the better expressing it he calleth it peculiarly The hope of the Gospel that is the hope which the Gospel hath wrought in us the expectation of those good things which it promiseth And so you see he referreth Hope to the Gospel as to its true and genuine object All the hopes that we conceive from other grounds are vain and failing There are none but those which embrace the promises of JESUS CHRIST that are firm and solid and such as never confound them that wait for them The Gospel promiseth us first the entire expiation of our sins and the peace of GOD in JESUS CHRIST His Son They therefore that seek this benefit in the Ceremonies and Shadows of the Law as the Galatians somtime did and the false Teachers who would have seduced the Colossians or that seek it in their own merits and the merits of Creatures they all I say and all that are like them let themselves be carried away from the hope of the Gospel Then again the Gospel promiseth us eternal life in the heavens by the grace of GOD in His Son Those therefore quit the hope thereof also who seek their felicity either in the earth or in heaven otherways than by the sole mercy of the LORD Whereby it doth appear how very pertinently S. Paul doth recommend this hope of the Gospel unto the Colossians For in the combat wherein they were engaged it was sufficient to preserve them from all the attempts of the Impostors What have I to do saith this Hope with the observation of your Disciplines or the quirks of your Philophy since I abundantly have in my Gospel all the good things which you vainly promise me But because it is ordinary with false Teachers to abuse the name
of the Gospel and to give it to the Fopperies and Vanities which they preach S. Paul to put the Colossians out of all doubt and ambiguity indicateth expresly to them what this Gospel is of which he speaketh That saith he which you have heard namely of Epaphras who had preached it among them and to whom he gave before an excellent Testimonial for fidelity and sincerity I mean saith he the Gospel which you receiv'd at the beginning from the mouth of true Servants of GOD and not these vain and dangerous Doctrines which evil workers would make to pass with you for the Gospel of CHRIST though they be nothing less then so But to confirm them the more in the faith he sets before them in the second place an excellent encomium of the Gospel which containeth a clear proof of its truth saying That it is the Gospel which was preached to every creature under heaven It is not the Doctrine which these false Apostles sowed here and there in some out quarters whispering and privily advancing the same among light and unstable spirits It is the true Word of the Son of GOD which had been proclaimed through the whole Universe by His command and according to the Oracles of His ancient Prophets That Word which going forth from Jerusalem did spread its self every way in a very little time and being accompanied with the power of its Author made it self be heard and believed in all the Provinces of the habitable earth in spight of the contradictions of Hell and the world His assertion that the Gospel was preached to every creature which is under heaven may be expounded two manner of ways but both of them amounting to the same sense First by a Figure very common in Divine and Humane speech the word Creature may be taken for Man the noblest and most excellent of all the Creatures And the LORD had so used the word before in the same matter when He commanded His Apostles to do what S. Paul doth magnifie in this place Go ye forth said He to them into all the world and preach the Gospel unto every creature Where it is evident that by every creature He understandeth men who alone are capable of hearing and receiving what is preached In this sense when S. Paul saith that the Gospel was preached to every creature it is as much as if he had said to all mankind and among all sorts of men agreeably to what he saith here a little after speaking of himself that he admonisheth every man Col. 1.28 and teacheth every man in all wisdom Secondly these words To every creature may in my opinion be taken also as signifying in all the world and this the rather because it is literally in the Original in all the creature with the Article the and not simply to every creature Now that S. Paul sometimes useth this term the creature to signifie the world this great body and collection of all things which GOD hath created this is manifestly to be seen in the Epistle to the Romans where he saith Rom. 8.19 20 21. That the great and ardent desire of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the children of GOD and again That the creature was made subject to vanity and more a little after That all the creature groaneth and travelleth in pain together until now where it is clear and confessed by the greatest part of Interpreters that the creature signifies the world and our Bibles to make us understand it the better do change the singular number into the plural rendring it les creatures and toutes les creatures the creatures and all the creatures whereas the Original readeth simply the creature and all the creature Taking it thus therefore in this place when the Apostle saith the Gospel was preached in all the creature which is under heaven he meaneth in all the world wherein we dwell wherein GOD hath seated mankind beneath the heavens I will make no stay here now to shew you how it might be truly said in S. Pauls time that the Gospel of our LORD was then preached to all mankind or in all the habitable world or how this event is a clear and solid proof of its truth We have already heretofore handled both the one and the other of these two particulars in expounding if you remember the sixth Verse of this Chapter which affirmed that the Gospel was come unto all the world Upon that Text which signifies no other thing than what the Apostle saith here namely that the Gospel hath been preached in all the creature which is under heaven We shewed first by good and irrefragable testimonies of Ancient Writers both Christian and Pagan that the heavenly Word had been preached within the Apostles days in all Countreys then known either to Greeks or Romans and receiv'd for the most part with fruit so as taking the word World according to the stile of all Languages not simply and absolutely for all the parts of the Terrestrial Globe but only for those which at that time were known to men and which they understood to be inhabited it might be said with truth and without any over-reaching Hyperbole as S. Paul declareth here that the Gospel had been preached in all the creature which is under heaven that is in all the world And in the second place we proved both by the importance of the thing it self and by the respect it hath to the Oracles of the Old Testament which had predicted it many ages before its event that this so swift so sudden and so admirable running of the Gospel through all the world in so few years is a certain and infallible evidence of the verity and divinity of this holy Doctrine obliging consequently both the Colossians heretofore and us at present to hold fast and persevere in the faith which we have given to it without suffering our selves to be ever mov'd away from it either by the cheating arts of false Teachers and their crafty Seducements or by the Threatnings and Persecutions of the world These things having been heretofore largely deduced and opened to you lest the repition of them should be irksome I will pass to the third head of our Text wherein the Apostle sets before the Colossians another Character of true Christian Doctrine to wit that it is the Word the Ministery whereof was committed to him It is saith he the Gospel of which I Paul have been made a Minister He opposeth his heavenly call to the temerity of the false Teachers who ran without having been sent and preached not what Heaven commanded them but what earth inspir'd them with their impulsions and instructions being from flesh and blood and not from the LORD JESUS It was otherwise with Paul all the faithful knew him to have been called from heaven and suddenly changed by the efficacy of Divine power from a Wolf into a Pastor made an Herald and witness of the Gospel immediately by the LORD JESUS instructed in His
perpetual voice of the Church that though the faithful dye for their brethren Aug. 〈◊〉 tract in Joaâ— l. q. ad Bonif. de pecc mer. remiss yet Martyrs did not shed one drop of their blood for the remission of their sins And that none but CHRIST hath done this for us and that He herein gave us not what to immitate but what to thank Him for that He alone took on Him our punishment without our sin to the end that we by Him without merit might obtain the grace which is not due to us This foundation being overturned their pretended treasury and the dispensing of it which they forge doth fall to ground I confess the Church hath a treasure or rather a living spring of graces and of propitiation for its sins but it is full and whole in JESUS CHRIST her eternal High priest who was ordained of GOD from all time to be a propitiation through faith in His blood and to have possession of the same the sinner needeth but to present Him an heart full of faith and of repentance according to the direction of S. John 1 Joh. 1.9 If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to pardon them and to cleanse us from all iniquity As for the patience and the sufferings of Saints though they have not the vertue to satisfie for our sins yet notwithstanding they are not unprofitable to us Wherefore the LORD would have them put up and kept not in the pretended enchequer of the Pope but in the treasury of the Scriptures out of which every faithful person hath the liberty to fetch them at all times for his use to the edifying of his life and for the gathering from such fair examples that excellent fruit of piety which they do contain he admiring and imitating them the best he can This is that we ought to practise upon the sufferings of the Apostle in particular which are represented to us in this Text that we may in good earnest make our profit of them to the glory of GOD and our own edification Learn we from them first not to be ashamed of affliction for the Gospel S. Paul shews us that it is matter of joy Mat. 5.11 12. I rejoyce saith he in my sufferings and our LORD Himself commands us to have this sentiment of it Rejoyce saith He and be exceeding glad when men shall revile you and persâ—cute you for great is your reward in Heaven For so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you CHRIST was treated thus Himself and His Apostles went to heaven the same way Blush not at the bearing of their marks If they be ignominious before men they are glorious before GOD Fortify your selves in this resolution particularly ye to whom GOD hath committed the ministry of His word If the world do thwart your preaching if it threaten you if it come so far as to imprisonments and to banishing and further yet remember that S. Paul had no better usage and that it was out of a prison that he wrote this excellent Epistle As your cause is the same so let your courage be like his Conclude as he did that these bonds are an honour to you that these sufferings are the afflictions of CHRIT Let this sacred Name and the communion you have with Him sweeten all the bitterness of your troubles But Faithful Brethren think ye not to be exempted from these trials because you are not Ministers of the Gospel You also have part in them each one according to his calling and the measure of the grace of GOD. He hath no children whom he consecrateth not by afflictions But if you suffer with JESUS CHRIST you shall raign with Him If you have part now in his Cross you shall have so one day in His glory And to assure you of it He calleth your sufferings His afflictions He protesteth that you receive never a blow but He feeleth it Doubt not but he doth take great notice of the confflicts which He vouchsafes to call His. Think also upon what He hath sustained for you and you will confess it is reasonable that you should suffer something for His Glory who hath undergone so much for your salvatition He hath taken up for you the whole curse of GOD Will not you bear the reproaches and wrongs of men for Him He hath born and expiated the penalty of your sins on the cross Will you have horror at the remainder of His afflictions He hath accomplished what was most difficult that which none but He could discharge having drank for us the dreadful cup of GOD's indignation against our sins Accomplish ye stoutly the trials that remain for us It 's He Himself that dispenseth them to us It 's not either the phancy of men or the rage of Devils God hath cut out our task for us It 's from His hand we must receive all the afflictions we shall suffer But beside that we owe this respect and subjection to GOD let us learn of the Apostle that we owe such examples also to the Church It is not for JESUS CHRIST alone that we suffer It is for His body also As our afflictions advance the glory of the Master so do they serve likewise for the edification of the Family Judge ye thereby Faithful Brethren what our affection for the Church should be The consideration of it made up a good part of the Apostles joy He accounted himself happy that by his sufferings he could testify the love he bore to this sacred body of His Master He blessed his Chain how hard soever it was because it did the Church some service Dear Brethren let us imitate this divine charity Love we our LORD's Church above all things Let us make it the chief object of our delight Consecrate we to its edification all the actions and sufferings of our lives Embrace we all its members with brotherly kindness and take good heed we despise no man that hath the honour to be incorporate in so august and so divine a society The Apostles example sheweth us that we owe them even our blood and our life And we have heard him besides at another time Phil. 2.17 professing to the Philippians that if he might serve for an aspersion upon the sacrifice 1 Joh. 3.16 and service of their faith he should joy in it And S. John saith expresly that as CHRIST hath laid down His life for us so we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren If the LORD spare our infirmity and call us not to so high trials let us at least testifie our charity towards the Church by all the offices and services whereof our condition and the present occasion is capable We owe it our blood Let us give it at least our tears our almes our good examples You that have had the heart to plunge your selves in the vain pastimes of the world while the Church was in mourning that have laught and sported while she suffered and
in old time that your holy life might be new As your knowledge is greater than that of other ages so let your holiness surpass theirs The dimness of their light doth in some sort excuse their faults faults committed in the mistakes of childhood and in the obscurity of shadows With what pretext can you palliate yours you to whom GOD hath communicated all His counsel How will you defend that ardent and unruly passion which you have for the earth you whom by the Gospel he hath made to see all the beauties of Heaven How will you justifie the love and the adherence you have one to the pleasures of the flesh another to the heaps and honours of the world you to whom He hath shewed the riches and the glory of eternity in His Son JESUS CHRIST Sure to sin in such light is not an infirmity nor simply a naughtiness It is an impudence and an execrable insolency Take heed then Beloved Brethren that this great grace which GOD hath shewed you do not turn to your condemnation If you desire it should be saving to you purifie your selves and cleanse your selves from all filthiness and pollution For the mysteries of GOD are only for Saints Renounce the world's behaviour as well as its belief Walk in the wayes of Heaven in an Honesty and Purity worthy of the vocation wherewith GOD hath honoured you Let His mystery shew forth the wonders of its glory among you potently changing your whole life into its brightness and transforming you into the image of that JESUS CHRIST who hath vouchsafed to dwell in you and to take your hearts for His temple that after you have wisely managed His talents here below and happily travailed in His work He may crown you one day in the Heavens with that soveraign and eternal glory which He hath promised us and we hope for from His grace So be it THE XV. SERMON COL I. Vers XXVIII XXIX Vers XXVIII Whom we preach admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may render every man perfect in CHRIST JESUS XXIX Whereunto also I labour combating according to His efficacy which worketh in me powerfully DEAR Brethren There is a great difference between the Law and the Gospel both in regard of their own nature and in regard of the manner of their dispensation For to omit other things the Gospel is a mystery that is a verity so hid in GOD as if He had not vouchsafed to discover it to men Himself by a supernatural revelation no creature either earthly or heavenly had been ever able to bring it forth from the bottomless deeps of GOD's wisdom or to acquire any solid and distinct knowledge of it by the contemplation of the things of the world But the Law is a verity suitable to the sentiments of nature and so open to the view of Angels and men that if sin had not dulled and corrupted the strength of our understanding we should have easily comprehended it of our selves without any extraordinary manifestation from Heaven Accordingly you see how deplorate and how blind soever men be yet they fail not to discern the things of the Law and the rectitude and justice of the most of that which it commands us But if you consider the dispensation of these two doctrines you will find that whereas the Law was given by Moses to the Jewish nation only the Gospel of our LORD and Saviour was preached to all people on earth indifferently there having been no part of mankind to whom the benefit of this new light was not presented by the Apostles and their Schollars S. Paul if you remember informed us of it in the foregoing text where he affirmed first that the Gospel is a mystery sudden during all the ages and generations which had passed but now manifested to the Saints of GOD and secondly that the LORD hath made known the glorious riches of this mystery among the Gentiles that is to say among other people of the world beside the Jews This he further confirms in the Text now read unto you by the extent of his preaching protesting that he declareth this Divine word to all men For having intimated before the subject of this great mystery of the Gospel and declared that it consisteth wholy in CHRIST JESUS alone who is the author and the matter of this coelestial doctrine he addeth whom we preach admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may render every man perfect in JESVS CHRIST And because his labours and his sufferings were one of the most glorious marks of the truth and the Divine authority of his Apostleship he maketh mention of them also in the following verse Whereunto I also labour saith he combating according to His efficacy which worketh powerfully in me For his design is to justifie what he had before told the Colossians namely that he was a Minister of the Church set up to fullfil the word of GOD among the Gentiles and this to the end he might establish the Colossans in the doctrine which he preached and secure them from the seductions of false Apostles who endeavoured to corrupt it by immixing with it the errors which they went to and fro a sowing in the world and did pretend that besides Faith in JESUS CHRIST there was a necessity of observing the ceremonies of the Law of Moses and of practising divers superstitions as the worshipping of Angels which they recommended and hugely exalted as S. Paul will shew us in the following chapter It was for the setting up of his own Ministry and teachings above these evil workers that he urged his heavenly call before It is for this end again that he exalted the Gospel in so lofty a manner and it 's for the same end that he here sets forth the exercise of his Apostleship which consisteth in two things one whereof is the preaching which he describes in verse 28. The other is the labour and conflict which accompanied his preaching declared in the verse following the last of this chapter These are the two points which we will treat of by the will of GOD in the present action the Preaching and the combats of S. Paul noting upon each of them what we shall judge apt for your edification and consolation which is the only mark that all the labour of this great Apostle tended to and the true end both of our word and your faith As for the Apostles Preaching we shall have four things to consider which he saith of it First the subject of it to wit JESVS CHRIST whom saith he we preach Secondly the manner of it which he expresseth in those words admonishing and teaching every man Thirdly the object to which this preaching of his was directed namely every man admonishing every man saith he and teaching every man and in the fourth and last place the end and aim to which it tended to wit the perfecting of those to whom it was directed that saith he we may
by the Letter which he wrote thereupon registred in the said Book it doth appear that there was much loosness and coldness and many defects in this flock whether such corruption had got footing there so early as S Paul's own time or whether as I judg more probable it were slipt in afterwards through carelesness of the faithful and the craft of foes However it be there is great likelihood that Laodicea was troubled at this time with the same evils that the Colossians were and that these Seducers who endeavour'd to infect the one apply'd themselves also to the other Therefore the Apostle would have this Epistle which is as a preservative against the venom of these false teachers to be communicated to those of Laodicea an evident sign that since they had need of the same remedies they were threatned with the same maladies But to the Colossians and the Laodiceans whom he here expresly nameth he further adds indefinitely all those which had not seen his presence in the flesh His name was so very famous among Christians that there could hardly be any one of that number but had heard speak of him knew him by reputation and consequently had seen him in heart and in spirit But he speaks of those only that had not seen him present in body whether he by these words do understand all the faithful in general that had not at all enjoy'd his presence in what coast or country soever they were for we know that the care of this eminent Apostle extended to them all Or whether he speak here of the faithful in Phrygia or in Asia only which in my opinion is more likely For there being no possibility that S. Paul and the other Apostles should present themselves every where they often sent Evangelists who were as their assistants and coadjutors hither and thither to divers places to travel for the Conversion of Souls And so though the Apostle had traversed the greatest part of Asia the less and honoured with his presence and preaching many of the principal Cities in it and in special the Province of Phrygia Act. 16.6 18.2 3. as may be gathered from the Book of the Acts Yet it may not be doubted but that there remained still many Cities to which he had not been able to go in person Expositors both ancient and modern for the most part do conclude from these words of S. Paul that he had not been yet in the City of Colosse nor in the City of Laodicea when he wrote this Epistle and they suppose that he had converted those people and founded Churches among them by the Ministry of Epaphras without conveying himself in person thither Nor can it be denyed but that the words do give us some apparent ground so to conceive For saying That he hath a great conflict for the Colossians and the Laodiceans and for all those that had not seen his presence in the flesh he seems to enroll the Colossians and the Laodiceans among those that had never seen him Theodoret. in his Preface to this Epist on the place it self Nevertheless there are Authors found among the Ancients and they of as great repute as any for height of Learning as well as for choiceness of Wit and solidity of Judgment who are otherwise minded and do hold that S. Paul had been both at Colosse and at Laodicea accounting it improbable that he should have gone through Phrygia twice as S. Luke expresly testifies and not have seen these two Cities the principal ones of that Country And for these words and all those which have not seen my presence in the flesh they conceive them added not to rank the Colossians and the Laodiceans with such as had not seen the Apostle but quite contrary to distinguish and separate them from them as if S. Paul had said that he had a great combat not only for them but even for those who never saw his presence in the flesh But this disterence being of no great importance at the bottom and means necessary for an exact decision of it also failing there is no need we should stay to solve it but may leave every one at liberty to take either way of the two neither of them endamaging the truth of faith or holiness of life And thus we have seen who they were for whom the Apostle sustained this great combat which he speaks of Consider we now the combat it self what it was I doubt not but he means thereby first and principally that care and sollicitousness and thoughtfulness which the consideration of these Churches drew upon him For though their faith and constancy afforded him much contentment and encouraged his hope yet when he cast his eyes upon the great tentations that surrounded them the hate and persecutions of the world the seducements and artifices of the false teachers and reflected on the weakness of humane nature he could not but fear left so many things and those of so much force should debauch them from piety Love is not without apprehension no not in the greatest safety how much less in the midst of so many dangers The Apostle assureth us elswhere that the affection he bore to the faithful was so great that he sympathiz'd in all their miseries and was as if he had suffered them himself The care which I have of all the Churches Cor. 11.29 saith he keeps me besieged from day to day Who is weakned but I am weakned also who is offended but I also burn And in the same place he represents unto us the pain he was in for the Corinthians in particular 2 Cor. 11.3 I fear saith he lest as the Serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty so by any means your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity which is in CHRIST Just the same did he apprehend for the Colossians and Laodiceans and other Christians in Asia even lest the cheats and crafts of Seducers should disorder their faith and make a like spoil among them as they made in the Church of the Galatians as appears by the Epistle he wrote them upon this occasion Yet these just fears wherewith the thoughts of the Apostle were incumbred were not his whole combat For under this word he compriseth also all that he did to divert the danger which he apprehended First he was perpetually in prayer for the safety of these dear Churches and as Moses in elder time upon the mountain ceas'd not lifting up his hands to the Almighty for the Victory of his Israel that was in fight the while with Amalek So this great Apostle from that high station where JESUS CHRIST had set him in His Church did continually present his supplications and sighs to Heaven for the good success of the Combats which his Master's troops were engaged in 2 Thes 1.12 Phil. 1.4 Colos 1.9 We pray always for you saith he I still make request for you all in all my prayers We cease not to pray for you and to
the senses or the reason of men yet the truth of them is so evident so beautiful and so well marked that as soon as the clouds of those passions and prejudices which hide it from us are removed from before the eyes of our understanding by the hand of the holy Spirit â—t beams forth and shines into our hearts with exceeding brightness and makes it self to be believed and embraced for what it is indeed Thus must it be known with certainty and not with doubting that we henceforth be no more children Ephes 4.14 wavering and carried to and fro with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and by their cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive as the Apostle speaks elswhere Whereby you see how false the opinion of Rome is which makes the belief of Christianity to depend upon the authority and testimony of her Prelates I pass by the extream weakness and vanity of this pretended foundation which hath been verify'd by a thousand experiments Whatever it be in other respects this is manifest that since they fasten the people's knowledg there they must of necessity confess that their faith ought to change if any change do happen in the doctrine of their Prelates whence it follows that then it is not certain nor assured nor such a knowledg as the Apostle requireth in us whose property is such that though Paul himself or Angels from heaven should come and preach the contrary it would abide not withstanding even under such a supposal still firm and unmoved and rather anathematize Apostles and Angels from heaven than let go that Divine verity which it hath believed and known so strong is the sense it hath of its excellency But the Apostle having thus described the nature of true faith or a Christian's understanding doth lastly confine it within the bounds of its true subject when he adds the knowledg of the Secret of our God and Father and of Christ This restriction is necessary because seducers do boast of their traditions too as if they were a piece of wisdom worthy of our faith and it may not be doubted but that the false teachers against whom the Apostle intends to dispute did deal in such manner To arm us against their vanity he declares expresly that the understanding he requireth of us is a knowledg not of what Philosophers do talk in their Schools about the nature of the world nor of what Seducers do bring forth from their vain imaginations but only of the Gospel of our LORD JESUS CHRIST without which there is nothing but error and folly He calls it a Secret or a Mystery because it was a verity hidden with GOD and incomprehensible to our minds as we have said otherwhere He saith that it is the Secret of GOD our Father both because He is the Author of it who hath reveal'd it to us of His Grace and because He hath manifested Himself therein discovering to us in the Gospel all that we need to know of His nature and will for attaining to Salvation He adds in the end and of CHRIST for the same reasons it being evident that it is the LORD JESUS who brought this holy doctrine from the bosom of the Father and set it in our view by the Ministry of His Servants and that also it is He who is the principal Subject of it as our only Mediator without whose conduct and merit it is impossible to have any part in true happiness It s of this mystery of CHRIST JESUS that the Apostle desired the Colossians might have a full firm and distinct knowledg for to abide knit together by charity and by this means enjoy a true and solid consolation This is the treasure which he is afraid least they should lose It 's to preserve it to them that he undergoâ—th so much pain and so many combats Dear Brethren his desire teacheth us our duty Since we aspire to the same happiness that the Colossians afore us have done since we serve the same Master and live under the same Discipline let us labour to get and keep for ever the same good things which the Apostle wisheth them GOD of His great mercy offereth them liberally to us and the fault will be ours if we do not partake of them â— for the Knowledg of his Mystery He presenteth us the treasury of it in His hoâ— Scriptures This source of light is not shut up and inaccessible unto you as it to a great part of the world and even to many that call themselves Christians but opened and made obvious Draw out of it the wisdom of heaven reading studying and searching those Divine books night and day We do not envy you this sweet and happy communication as the Pastors of our adver saries dea with their flocks We could wish as yerwhile Moses did that all GOD's people werâ— Prophets It 's a science that admitteth all ages all sexes and all conditions of men the Author of this holy doctrine having so temper'd it as it is accommodated to the capacity of every sort of persons There are in it deeps to exercise and humble the greatest Spirits there are facilities to instruct and content the least It is an abyss where Elephants may swim and a shallow where Lambs may wade But as all are capable of this science so there is no person but it is necessary for It 's the key of the Kingdom of heaven the spring of piety the root of sanctity the seed of true life Study it carefully Hearken to the teaching of it here meditate on it at home with deep intentiveness beseeching GOD with prayers and tears to open your hearts and write His doctrine in them Content not your selves with having learned some points of it Take no rest till you know all its wonders till you have attained not simply understanding but all riches of understanding as the Apostle here speaketh Urge not to me that vain and cold excuse which is in the mouths of many that you are not Ministers and therefore need not be so knowing These Colossians were Ministers no more than you and yet you see what the Apostle doth desire for them and afterwards he will enjoyn that the word of CHRIST do dwell plenteously in them in all wisdom Why are you less exposed to temptations for your not being Ministers are the Devil and the World less ardent or less obstinate in setting upon you We are all engaged in the same war and have all need of the same arms Is it Captains only and Officers that ought to be armed Is it not necessary for private Soldiers The knowledg of the Mysteries of the Gospel is the armor of all Christians and the Scripture is the publick Magazine whence both one and the others should fetch it But that it may do you service at your need this knowledg must be also deeply radicated in your hearts you must have it with a full assurance as the Apostle saith It should not sleightly
is not yet enough for my consolation CHRIST I confess sufficiently assureth me of the pardon of my sins What assurance doth he give me against so many enemies the world the evil Angels flesh and blood in midst of whom my way doth lye But Christian doth not the same Cross which hath merited your pardon give you also clear and undoubted evidence of your safety during the whole course of your life For since you understand by it that GOD hath delivered up his only Son to death for you how can you fear that he will with-hold any of the cares of his Providence from you Yet this is not all CHRIST JESUS who sheweth us these excellent and sacred verities in his death as it were engraven in great Letters on his Cross holds up others before our eyes of no less importance in his Resurrection Believers neither the pardon of your sin nor the assistance of GOD during your life would be sufficient for you for as much as after all death will swallow you up as well as unbelievers See then further in your JESUS the truth that is necessary to compleat your consolation By committing his spirit at the point of death into the Father's hands he teacheth you that GOD will receive your soul when you depart out of the world And by rising again the third day after he assureth you that your bodies shall one day be rais'd out of the dust And ascending into Heaven he assureth you that you shall be transported thither both soul and body to live and reign there with him in eternal glory As for the way which you must take to arrive at this high happiness his whole life and his death have clearly mark'd it out to you and he still shews it you from that lofty Throne whereon he is set Tread in my steps saith he if you will be exalted to my glory Follow the example of my innocence and of my charity if you desire to have part in the Crown of my Kingdom I have born injuries with calmness and patience I have constantly obeyed my Father even unto my death on the Cross and you see the honour wherewith he hath crowned me Imitate my obedience and you shall receive my recompence This is the lesson which the LORD JESUS giveth us shewing us incomparably more clearly than either the frame or government of the World or the Mosaical dispensation ever did both the Justice of GOD that we may dread him and the Power and Wisdom of God that we may reverence him and his mercy that we may love and serve him with all the strength of our souls serve him I say not with the sacrifices of old Judaism nor with the feeble and childish devotions of Superstition but with a pure and holy heart with works worthy of him with an ardent zeal a sincere charity a constant integrity and honesty a profound patience and humility an immovable hope and confidence These are the Verities which do constitute true Wisdom all of them as you see high and sublime but in like degree useful and salutiferous Here is not question of the nature of Elements of Animals of Plants or of Meteors nor of the motions of the Sun or of the Moon or of the other Planets but of the Beeing and the Counsels and the Conduct of that Great and Most High God who made and formed all those things and in comparison of whom Heaven and Earth are but a Mite of dust Question is not of numbers and figures which can neither diminish your mseries nor make your souls happy but of your peace with GOD of your consolation in this life and of your glory and immortality in the next It 's this which JESUS CHRIST teacheth us that Divine crucified Person who dyed and rose again for us It s this he shews us represented in high and splendid colours through all the pieces of his Mystery However Nature and the Law might discover the brims and first lineaments of this Celestial Wisdom it 's he alone who hath exhibited to us the whole body and shewed us the entire frame and structure of it Conclude we then that it is verily in him that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg are hidden as the Apostle saith Embrace we this Conclusion with firm belief and upon it bless we GOD first for that he hath vouchsafed to give his CHRIST unto Mankind and particularly for that he hath communicated him unto us mercifully presenting him to us both in his Word and in his Sacraments Next pray him to open our eyes more and more that we may discern these rich and precious treasures of wisdom and knowledg which he hath hid in him Let not the vileness of his Cross nor the veil of his Infirmity nor the simplicity of his Gospel and these Sacraments wherein he is offer'd to us offend us This very thing if we consider it as we ought makes up one principal part of the wonder and that we may rightly know and value this treasure let us cleanse our minds from the clay and mire of the earth let us purifie our understandings and rid them of the sentiments and opinions of the world which being fastned to its own dung doth prize nothing but the luster of its false honours and the vanity of its perishing riches and the delight of its unseemly pleasures Let us once set free our souls from these fordid and servile passions and acknowledg as is clear and visible and justified by experience that it 's an extream error and folly to seek one's happiness in such wretched things Lift we up our eyes unto Wisdom and desire the possession and embrace the study of it It is the jewel and ornament of our nature its whole dignity stands in it Without it man is little or nothing different from beasts nay in some sort in worse case than they as sinking beneath himself and falling into utmost misery But give we good heed lest we take a shadow for substance and a phantasm for true wisdom Be not deceived This wisdom is only in CHRIST JESUS All that pretended wisdom which hath the acclamations and applauses of people whether in the Courts or in the Schools of the world is but masked folly a disguised extravagance and a painted error which passeth by the principal and necessary part and amuseth its self about that which is of no profit nor any way provides for its own welfare which is the true end of wisdom Seek it therefore in JESUS CHRIST alone It is in him that you shall find the true substance of it And as those that have any treasure are wont to visit it often and have their hearts always in the place where it is so think you night and day upon this Divine Saviour in whom are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledg Consider him pry into him and diligently sound him He is an Abyss of good things Have your hand ever there and draw thence by faith study and meditation all
both of the desire he had to see them persevere still in so good a course and of the advice he gave them not to suffer themselves to be beguiled by the perswasive words of seducers as likewise of the adding that preservative of meditating incessantly upon the treasures of wisdom which are in JESUS for the saving themselves from this mortal danger It 's now our concernment to make a good improvement of so excellent a lesson We are as much environ'd or more than the Colossians sometimes were with people that endeavour to deceive us with words of perswasion that daily make all kind of attempts upon our faith and do not forget the sophisms of subtilty or the charms of eloquence presenting error to us farded with divers specious colours For the securing of our minds from their illusions let us tell them as the Apostle teacheth us That all the Treasures of wisdom are hid in that JESUS CHRIST whom we have embraced that He sufficeth to make us wise to salvation and that we need to know none but Him to obtain happiness If with fair and artificial words they represent to us the necessity of an expiatory Sacrifice for the recommending that of their own Altars or the utility of Satisfactions to make us receive theirs or the horror of fin which hath no entrance into the Kingdom of GOD to perswade us upon their Purgatory or the need we have of an Intercessor to oblige us to have recourse to the mediation of Angels and of departed Saints or of an Head to set up their Pope Let us answer them That we have all this most fully in JESUS CHRIST that His Cross is our Sacrifice His Sufferings our Satisfactions His Blood our Purgation That while we possess Him we shall need neither an Intercessor to open the Throne of the Grace of GOD to us and render both our persons and our prayers acceptable to Him nor an Head to govern and conserve us Let us account all that would turn us aside from Him or place any part of its Treasure elsewhere than in Him to be a seduction and an illusion And as good Physicians do not only preserve from poysons but also draw profit from them by making them Remedies so let us not content our selves to keep the venom of Seducements from hurting us let us manage them in such sort as that they may serve us Let the ardency they have for Error enflame our zeal for the Truth Let their pains-taking and industry sharpen our diligence and care Let us employ that acuteness and eloquence to the defence of the Gospel which they prophane in the service of an Imposture Let us have no less affection for the Cause of GOD than they have for the matters of flesh and blood And instead of the extravagancy of some who love ignorance and rudeness because Error doth abuse Knowledg and Eloquence let us on the contrary thence take occasion to labour in adorning and embellishing of Truth that even in this respect Falshood may have no advantage above it But if the examples of enemies should be of use to us much more ought the examples of Brethren be so which wholly and solely tend to our edification Let us make our profit of that of the Colossians whose faith and order the Apostle praiseth that we might imitate it Let us put our Church into such an estate as may give joy to the LORD to His Angels and to His Ministers I may not deny but that your saith and order may be in some degree praised without flattery since by the Grace of CHRIST my Brethren you persevere in His fear and assiduously rank your selves under His Ensigns no tentation having been able hitherto to make you desert these holy Assemblies But you are not ignorant that together with this well-doing there are many miscarriages among us that there pass divers things in our Congregations smally comporting with the dignity of the House of GOD and that the hardness of some doth stiffen it self against Discipline the only Bond of Order and if our Faith be constant against Error it is too too yeilding unto Vice Dear Brethren I had rather leave the examination of it to your own Consciences than here publish our sin and shame and will content my self with telling you 1 Cor. 6.10 that the Apostle banisheth out of Heaven the vicious as well as the idolatrous GOD who hath granted us to persevere in the profession of His Truth be pleased powerfully to amend by the virtue of His Gospel the defects which His gentleness hath hitherto born with in us and sanctifie us so efficaciously that after we have glorified Him on Earth by the good order of our conversation and the fruirs of a firm and unmoved Faith we may one day receive in the Heavens from His merciful hand the Reward and Crown of blissful immortality in His Son JESUS CHRIST who in the Unity of the Father and of the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth the only GOD blessed for ever Amen THE NINETEENTH SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER VI VII VI. Therefore as you have received the Lord JESVS CHRIST so walk in Him VII Being rooted and built up in Him and established in the Faith as you have been taught abounding therein with thanksgiving FOrasmuch as man naturally loveth novelty and variety it cometh to pass that he disgusteth the best and most wholsom things when he is held any long time to the usage of them What food was there ever in the world better more savoury more nourishing and more miraculous than that Manna wherewith GOD fed the Israelites in the Wilderness pouring it down daily from Heaven upon them by the Ministry of his Angels whence it is called the Bread of Heaven and the Bread of the Mighty that is of the Angels Nevertheless this wretched people were soon discontented at it disdaining that precious gift of GOD Numb 11.6 and sottishly regretting the fruits and fish of Egypt Our soul said they is dried up there 's nothing here our eyes see nought but Manna Dear Brethren this History is a fit emblem of what hath betided men in reference to JESUS CHRIST and His Gospel the true Bread of Heaven sent down from GOD into the Wilderness of this World for the eternal nutriment of Mankind of which that ancient Manna as you know was the figure according to what Himself teacheth us in the sixth of S. John For our nature is no less delicate nor hath an appetite less extravagant in respect of the Doctrines that are necessary to seed our Souls than it hath in respect of the Meat that is ordained for the refection of our Bodies The truth of the LORD JESUS is embraced at the first with hungring and heat every one admiring the wonderfulness of this heavenly food which wholly exceedeth the productions of the earth But because though it be throughout holy and salutiferous yet it is simple and uniform the vanity of man in desiring change and variety
known of Him Rom. 1.19 20 and that His eternal Power and Godhead invisible in themselves are yet visibly seen by the creation of the world they being considered in His works But the misery is that the Philosophers being carried away with that vanity and curiosity which was natural to them broke those bounds and would needs define things which are beyond that compass and about which Reason in the state we now are sees not one jot And here it is they necessarily fell into error and extravagancies as persons born blind would do should they intrude to discourse to us of colours Such are the Fancies of Plato and his Scholars concerning the estate of the souls of men departed from their bodies concerning the purifications he devised to convey us near the Supream Good concerning the interposition of Daemons is he calleth them that is Angels as the Scripture terms them to present our supplications to GOD and concerning the service which he ordained to be done them in consequence of this good office and a thousand other such like things Such also was the mistake of Aristotle when not content to understand the present establishment of the World he would know what it was in the beginning wherein he had no light at all concluding because in the state things now are of nothing nothing is made that therefore it was never otherwise and thereupon affirming for a certainty that the World is eternal As if we must needs judg of the first beginning of a thing by those Laws under which it lives after its settlement and should limit the power of a free Agent to the measure of the effect wrought that is as if because GOD in this frame of the World doth make now nothing without Matter therefore it followed that absolutely he could make nothing another way which is as impertinent a reasoning as if you should inferr that because a Painter hath wrought his pieces with three or four colours only it were impossible for him to draw or represent any thing any otherways In this particular Philosophy hath offended by excess undertaking more than it could compass It often erreth likewise by defect when it rejects the revelation of GOD as resolved to admit nothing that is above its own sense and reason as if a man that had never seen any other than the shining of our Fires and our Candles should contest there was no other light in the world Pride hath made the greatest part of the old Philosophers to fall into this impiety It seemed to them an abasing of their glory to acknowledg there was another School more knowing than theirs and that it was an injury to tell them GOD had discovered secrets to others which he had hid from them It was this vanity that spurr'd them on so violently against the Gospel of our LORD and Saviour at the beginning If Philosophy do modestly keep its rank if it be content with its bounds and not thrust away nor injure divine Revelation if it acknowledg it as its Mistris and be subject to it as Agar yerwhile was to Sarah welcom be it it may be received and may abide with us But if it usurp if it will needs be Mistris and command in a Family where it hath only the quality of a Bond-woman let it depart and be treated according to Sarah her speech to Abraham Drive out the bond-woman and her son GOD hath vouchsafed to reveal unto us by his Prophets and in the last times by his own Son all the Articles of Religion Philosophy ought to adore them with us It hath nothing to enjoin us in the matter From the mouth of GOD not from the mouth of Philosophy do we receive Religion As often therefore as Teachers of Error shall use the authority or artifice of the Philosophers to render their inventions plausible or probable in our eyes let us boldly despise all their subtilty Let not the names of Aristotle and Plato make us afraid let not their petty subtilties dazzle our sight We may hear them when question is only of men and of nature When GOD and his service is concern'd we ought to give ear to none but GOD and the Son of his love about whom he hath proclaimed from Heaven to us This is my beloved Son hear him It 's this the Apostle doth intend when he saith here Let no man make a prey of you by Philosophy But provided the Doctrine of our Lord and Saviour do remain sound and entire without diminution without augmentation or mixture we are not prohibited the service of Philosophy but may employ its Physicks and its Ethicks to confirm and illustrate as far as they can the truths of the Gospel its Logick to defend them against the Sophisms and Sleights of gain-sayers and in sum to adorn and embellish them we may use ought of worth that Philosophy doth afford as the Israelites heretofore adorned the Sanctuary of GOD with the Gold and Silver and Jewels of Egypt Whence you may see how in the disputes of Religion which we have with those of Rome they for their part do evidently abuse Philosophy whereas we duly employ it they abuse it For not to say that they make Aristotle reign in their Divinity-School regarding his Edicts and cherishing much jealousie of his reputation as if he were a Pillar of Religion they found Articles of their Faith upon the authority of the Sages of the world as when they prove their Purgatory by the testimony of Plato and the veneration of Images by the custom of Nations and Free-will by Philosophy and divers other things of like nature which being not to be found in the Scriptures of GOD they go seek them in the Writings of men As for us it is evident we have no positive Article in our Faith but what is in the Gospel Only when our Adversaries urge their Transubstantiation upon us having shewed that GOD hath no where revealed it to us in his word but even clearly contradicted it we call in Philosophy its self to our succour to evidence the absurdity thereof We produce its testimony in a case which clearly is of its cognizance namely the nature of an human body the place it takes up the quantity to which it is extended the quality of substantial mutations of which kind they pretend this is Whether a body made and formed Sixteen hundred years ago may still be every day substantially produced But it is high time to come to the two other Sources of the deceits of false Teachers The second is the Tradition of men as the Apostle calls it Take heed saith he that none do make prey of you by Philosophy and vain deceit after the traditions of men The Scripture commonly gives the name of Traditions to those instructions which we receive from some other And it frequently useth the word deliver whence in the Latin Tongue that of Tradition is derived for to instruct or teach I received of the LORD saith the Apostle that
The LORD is a true Divinity dwelling in a true Flesh and true Flesh dwelt in by a true Divinity There is a Divinity and an Humanity truly distinct the one of them from the other and each of them retaining its own beeing and proper qualifications but there is one only and the same Person who takes His Name sometimes from the one and sometimes from the other and sometimes jointly from them both For we call Him the Son of Mary and the Seed of David by reason of His Flesh The Everlasting GOD and the Word of the Father and the Lord of Glory by reason of His Divinity Immanuel that is to say GOD with us and GOD manifested in Flesh by reason of these two natures together I confess it is a mystery that surpasseth our comprehension and a wonder that hath no parallel But neither must we measure the verities of Religion by the Ell of our understandings especially when question is of GOD whose Nature Reason it self doth confess to be infinite and incomprehensible It sufficeth that the word of the LORD informeth us it is so And though our reason cannot discern the manner how yet it being once illuminated by Divine revelation it acknowledgeth a kind of necessity of it For presupposing what the Scripture doth discover and reason approve of the desert of sin and of the infinite punishment that is due to it as also of the inflexible constancy of Divine Justice which cannot let sin pass unpunished it evidently follows that man could not have been reconciled to GOD unless his Justice were satisfied nor his Justice have been satisfied without a Sacrifice of infinite worth and merit So as it being the office of CHRIST to reconcile men unto GOD it is clear that for the effecting of this great design he must offer to the Father a Sacrifice of infinite value and consequently be GOD since nothing can proceed from a finite subject but what is also finite and none is infinite but GOD alone It was necessary therefore that all the fulness of the Godhead should dwell bodily in our Mediator Not to speak of other emoluments which this admirable union of our Nature with the Divine in the Person of JESUS CHRIST doth afford us as the assurance it gives us of the infinite love of GOD and of our salvation the title it procureth us to the merits of our Saviour whom it hath made our Brother and consequently our selves capable of being his co-heirs the consolation it sheds into our hearts of his whom we serve having an infinite power and wisdom to defend us in our combats to strengthen us in our weaknesses to preserve us against all the assaults of Hell and the World and redeem us from death the last of our enemies it being evident that if we had but a meer man for a Saviour how holy and excellent soever he might be there would remain unto us still very great and just causes of diffidence and fear Therefore blessed for ever be the Father of our LORD blessed be his love and that great mercy which induced him to send us so excellent and admirable a Mediator as hath all the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily Let us receive him with faith and adore him with devotion and serve him with zeal Neither let his flesh be an offence to us It is very flesh I grant but the flesh of an Eternal GOD who under this Pavilion of his visible abasement of himself which the world otherwhile so insolently despised hath lodged all the glory of Heaven and all the fulness of the Divinity Nor let his Majesty and this fulness of the Godhead which dwelleth in him affright us He 's a great God I confess but a GOD manifested in flesh dwelling in our nature descending and humbled even to our degree and partaking of our flesh and our blood that he might bring us to himself Let us embrace with reverence that most sacred Religion which he hath brought us from Heaven And indeed iâ— the World hath followed and held fast and still in divers places doth with so much earnestness follow and hold Religions invented and erected by vain men who were full of ignorance and error what respect do we not owe to this same one that hath been given us by the hand and mouth of a person in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead Moses was but GOD's Servant and you see what respect the ancient people bore him and with what severity all disobediences and rebellions against his Ordinances were punish'd and how that poor Nation doth still at this day in vain adore the Sepulcher and Reliques of the Law which dyed and was abrogated long ago What penalties then must we expect if we despise the Doctrine of the Son who is eternally blessed with the Father Heb. 2.3 This great salvation as the Apostle elsewhere calls it which began to be declared first by the LORD All other Disciplines are perished or will in time perish Even that of Moses's did wax old and in the end was abolished But the Institutions of CHRIST shall remain for ever all-holy and all-perfect immutable and unalterable nor do they need any reformation or addition or amplification After the LORD we do not at all look for any other new Teacher to come into the world Moses promis'd another Prophet after his death to the people of GOD. JESUS CHRIST the Prophet so promised may have no Successor He doth not promise us any but only threatens us with divers seducers that would usurp His Name and counterfeit his Voice and put on sheeps cloathing to debauch his Disciples Whereupon we ought to take all those for suspicious that pretend to add any thing whatever to his sacred doctrine Besides our LORD and Saviour's own quality doth oblige us to content our selves with him and give no ear to any other For in him saith the Apostle dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily Seeing he hath fulness the man can want nothing that possesseth him according to what S. John saith He that hath the Son hath life that is eternal salvation which is all that we desire This short sentence of the Apostle's is enough to secure us against the artifices of all seducers if they set before us the delicacies and subtilities of Philosophy colouring their fond imaginations with a vain semblance of wisdom let us arm our selves with this consideration That we have in CHRIST JESUS all the true wisdom that is since in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead If any man offer us ancient traditions let us remember that the Authors of them were but men who how great and holy soever they may be are all liable to error whereas the Gospel which we do embrace is his doctrine in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily and by consequence pure and divine verity As for those Ancients and those Bishops and Pontiffs whose names and authority you our Adversaries do urge
me with I know not who they were or to say better I know well that they were men subject to failing so as neither you nor I can have any firm and certain assurance that their assertions are true But for this JESUS with whose Gospel I content me we all know that he was the Son of GOD in whom wisdom and truth do dwell bodily with all the fulness of the Deity Moses himself must be silent when the LORD JESUS doth appear as the Starrs do withdraw their light when the Sun shews abroad his The one's Law is no longer considerable when the other's Gospel is risen In fine this sentence of the Apostle's doth suffice to overturn not only all the traditions of men in gross and in general but even each of them singly and in particular For example we are press'd to serve and invocate Angels and Saints departed I will not for the present alledg that GOD whose voice is the rule of my Faith hath given no command about it I will not say that Religious worship doth not belong to any Creature I will not enquire whether Saints do heaâ— from Heaven where they are the prayers that are directed to them on the earthâ— nor whether being finite and created as they are they do behold the motions of our hearts I will only demand of our Adversaries Why they would have us serve and invocate Saints To the end say they that we may gain their favour and their intercession with the Father But poor men have we not in JESUS CHRIST all the grace and favour that we need And though there were nothing else in the matter would it not be great imprudence for us to have recourse to others since we have him near us in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Deity They extol unto us their merits and their satisfactions and the indulgences of their Popes I enter not upon a strict examination of these things nor do I make enquiry for the present whether they be merits and satisfactions and indulgences in reality or no. Though they were what those men pretend they be yet it is clear that they are useless to us since we find in this JESUS CHRIST who sufficeth us all the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him even bodily If you have need of mercy of grace of consolation of righteousness of merit of assistance of life none of these good things are wanting in him in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Deity And I am well assured you shall find no degree of them any other where either in Heaven or Earth But though some drop of them might be elsewhere met with yet it is certain and your selves will not deny it that they are not to be had either in Saints or in Angels either so undoubtedly or so abundantly as in JESUS CHRIST Why then while I have so rich a treasure in my hands would you have me go a begging other-where It is sufficient for me to be saved Since the fulness of things necessary for my salvation dwelleth in JESUS CHRIST I will content my self with having recourse to him alone with sixing my trust and my love on him and with addressing my services and supplications unto him nor will I be so unadvis'd as to lose or at least hazzard my time and my devotions in directing them to others which I am sure I may successfully apply unto him Dear Brethren Let us hold to this LORD alone Let us not divide our piety between him and any other Let him alone have our whole hearts and all our desires since he alone hath all that fulness which is necessary to make us happy He is the true Fountain of living water let us not draw any other where We have no need of Cisterns This Divine Rock that followeth the Camp of his own Israel hath wherewithal to satisfie all his people plentifully He wanteth nothing who hath fulness Only let us bring him souls hungring after his benefits and thirsting for his righteousness hearts panting after the pleasures of his Sanctuary and braying after him as the Hart after the brooks of water Let us serve him constantly and keep faithfully the holy discipline he hath given us in a continual exercise of piety and charity This is all that he demands of us for the love he hath born us for the favours he hath done us and for the glory which he promiseth us Let us not deny him I beseech you so just a thing Let us do what he requireth us and he will liberally give what we ask of him He will through his great goodness communicate this Divine fulness to us which dwells in himself that being justified by his merit cleared by his light upheld by his power enriched by his treasures quickned by his spirit and fed with his abundance we may one day have part in his Crowns and in his Glory after the petty conflicts and slight trials of this life to be made eternally happy in him Amen The Twenty-second SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER X XI Ver. X. And ye are made compleat in Him who is the head of all principality and power XI In whom also you are circumcised with a circumcision made without hand by the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh to wit by the circumcision of CHRIST DEar Brethren With excellent reason said our LORD and Saviour when he would magnifie the love of GOD towards Mankind that he so loved the world as he gave his only Son John 3.16 that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life For this donation of his CHRIST which he hath made us is without contradiction the greatest and most admirable evidence of his love that he could give us I confess that this great Frame which he freely bestowed on us at the first Creation this World roof'd with those stately Heavens that environ us enlightned by those brave Luminaries that roll about incessantly over us and filled with an infinite variety of good things was a choice sign of a wonderful bounty and love and that the Psalmist had reason to cry out as ravish'd with the consideration of it What is mortal man Psal 8.5 6 7. that thou hast remembrance of him and the son of man that thou visitest him For thou hast made him little less than the Angels and hast crowned him with glory and honour Thou hast made him ruler over the works of thy hands Thou hast set all things under his feet Yet it must be acknowledged that all this liberality of GOD's to us-ward which consider'd in its self is so great and so ravishing is a small matter in comparison of the ineffable and incomprehensible love which he hath shewed in giving us his CHRIST whether you compare the gifts themselves one with the other or do consider the fruit which they both yeeld For the first Whereas the World is a kind of Magazine of the riches of Nature JESUS CHRIST is the Treasury of
absurd and ridiculous The spirits in prison 1 Pet. 3 20. of whom S. Peter speaks cannot upon any better ground be taken for the souls of the faithful detâ—ined in Limbus since those spirits were sometimes rebellious or disobedient in the time of Noah and perished in their sin which cannot be said of the Patriarchs and the Faithful In fine the Apostle's saying that the way into the holy places was not manifested while the first Tabernacle was standing signifies indeed that the High-Priest of the Church our LORD JESUS CHRIST did not carry not introduce our nature into Heaven in soul and body nor discover and make manifest the way to our Mansion of Immortality until the veil of the first Tabernacle was rent which is very true But thence it follows not that the spirits of the faithful consecrated before our Saviour's coming did not feel the fruit of his death and much less that they were detain'd in Hell But besides that this Tradition hath no foundation in the Scripture it doth plainly cross the same For our LORD promised the good Thief Luke 23.43 that the very day he was crucified he should be with him in Paradice where yet according to our Adversaries supposition he should not have entred till the forty-third day after And the Parable of that bad rich man doth plainly shew us that at that time as the souls of impenitent sinners were cast into the torments of Hell-fire so the spirits of the faithful were carried up into the repose and felicity of Paradice For that bosome of Abraham wherein Lazarus rested Luke 16.22 25 26. was not a pit without water as the pretended Limbus is counted to have been but a place of refreshment and consolation not situate in the vicinity of Hell but severed from it by a great gulf set between them And in truth since the faithful did even then drink of the Mystical Rock as well as we were sprinkled with his blood did partake of his sufferings why would any one imagine that our Saviour's Sacrifice had less virtue to introduce them into Heaven after their death than it had to justifie and sanctifie and comfort them in the days of their life As they bore a part with us in the same faith and conflicts on the earth so had they share of our repose and joy in Heaven neither is there any reason for our being admitted if you will needs have them excluded Accordingly certain it is that those elder Christian Writers who did barr the souls of the faithful that deceased under the Old Testament out of Heaven did as well deny reception there to the souls of Christians not assenting that either the one or the other were admitted till after the resurrection so as our Adversaries rejecting as they have reason to do the one half of this error and confessing that Christian souls sufficiently purged are received into Heaven it is nothing but pure obstinacy in them to retain the other half thereof and pretend that the condition of the faithful departed under the Old Testament was otherwise than under the New Be it then concluded that all this pretended deliverance of souls brought out of Limbus is but the fiction of an human spirit not only beside but even against Scripture and Reason But I add in the second place that though it were as certain as it is dubious and as true as it is false yet it would not be possible to refer this passage of the Apostles unto it First The spirits of the faithful departed this life are not at all in the power of Satan but in the hands of GOD to whom they recommend them at their death so as though JESUS CHRIST had brought them out of Limbus yet it could not be said that he had therein spoiled the Devils since that to spoil them is to take from them what they were possess'd of and its clear that though the souls of the faithful had been in this imaginary Limbus yet they would have been there out of the Devil's possession Secondly The word here used which the French hath translated mener en montre that is lead about for a shew is always taken in an ill sense for a shameful and ignominious shew such as that of Malefactors is when they are led through the City and publickly executed that the sight of their shame and punishment may keep men in their duty Now if our LORD had delivered the souls of the faithful out of such a Limbus it could not be said that he had made a shew of them in this sense it being evident that in this case they would have accompanied his Triumph by way of honour and that it would not have been any ignominy but a glory for them to have followed his victorious Chariot Moreover the Apostle's words are so placed in the Original that the spoiling and making a shew of and triumphing over which he speaks of do necessarily respect the same persons that is those whom he spoiled are the same he made shew of and triumph'd over Now he spoiled not the spirits of the Fathers he on the contrary did enrich them sure then it is not them he made a shew of neither can the action which the verb importeth be referr'd to them without depraving the Apostle's whole Context This is all spoken of one and the same subject to wit those Powers and Principalities that is the Devils as we have demonstrated and as all do accord They are the Devils whom JESUS spoiled It is the same that he publickly made a shew of and it 's they again whom he triumphed over As for the Latin Interpreter his saying Zanchy the LORD triumphed of them in himself I acknowledg that divers Greek Copies do read the Text in that manner and some of our Writers have so expounded it conceiving that our Saviour upon his crucifixion did bring the Devils whom he had overcome out of their Hells and shew them to the Angels and the Spirits made perfect bound and chained up as a glorious token of the victory he had gotten over them and they add that this triumph did continue too until his ascension into Heaven But the Scripture telling us nothing of this matter I think it dangerous to affirm the same it being better and more safe to keep to that which GOD hath revealed in his word than to take liberty to follow our own imaginations how plausible soever they appear And the reason which seems to have moved those men to advance this conjecture is exceeding slender For they have been induc'd to do it only by conceiving it absurd to say that JESUS CHRIST triumphed over his Enemies on the Cross seeing that to speak properly he overcame them on the Cross but it seems he triumphed only at his resurrection and ascension But first though there were in this some inconvenience yet nothing would enforce us to assert what they propose It would be sufficient for the avoiding thereof to say that our Saviour
heretofore took the care to make those draughts is Author of the verities they represented and that the body doth descend from the same Heaven that at first did make the shadows of it to be seen I pass by for this time the Lamb and the Sacrifices and the aspersions and expiations and all the Levitical Priesthood a true delineation of our grand Victime offer'd for the salvation of the world and of that eternal righteousness which His bloud hath procured for us and other like things which cannot but with extreme difficulty be mainteined nor accorded with the ways of the ordinary wisdom of GOD save by acknowledging and receiving as veritable what the Apostle doth here teach us and is evident enough of it self namely that all this was heretofore ordained for the prefiguring of CHRIST I will only speak a few words of the distinction of meats and dayes The Apostle opens the mystery of it elsewhere For as to observance of meats giving us order in the Epistle to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 5.8 to keep the feast of our Passoever not with the old leaven of naughtines and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth doth he not clearly shew us that abstinence from leavened bread observ'd by the first people was a Picture of the Innocence and sanctity of the second and that by consequence it 's to the same we must referr the distinction of other legal meats the beasts which were forbidden them representing by the characters of their natural qualities those moral imperfections that is those vices and corrupt affections from which our lives ought to be exempted As for example abstinence from Swines flesh which was an abomination to them did signifie that the people of the Messiah should have no commerce with those uncleannesses and ordures of deportment wherein men of the world notably represented by the genius of this animal do wallow And when the same Apostle telleth us that we should keep our feast in truth and sincerity and in another place Hebr. 4 9. that there remaineth unto us a Sabbath or a rest doth he not shew us again that the old feasts of Israel were shadows of ours even of that feast which the Messiah hath procured and appointed for the faithful and which doth consist in two things the one that they do absteine from the works of sin and of the flesh the common works of men and the other that they do celebrate a rest in GOD with eternal joy Now that the body of these shadows is in JESUS CHRIST is evident For innocency sanctity abstinence from sin joy and immortality do well in Him fully There it is and no other where that the truth the example and pattern the doctrine and all the cause of them are to be found together with an almighty Spirit of light which alone is capable of producing these divine things in every one of us Whereby you see it is so far from being consequent upon these distinctions having been heretofore ordeined of GOD that we ought now to observe them still that on the contrary it is to be concluded we may insist no longer on them For since they were appointed in the quality of shadows until CHRIST should be revealed who sees not but that now when CHRIST hath been fully manifested it would be meer folly in us to adhere unto them still even as if seeing and having in hand the very body of a thing we should busy our selves in following after and embracing the shadow of it Precisely such was the extravagancy of these false Teachers who are here noted by S. Saul and such also is the errour of all those who upon the like pretences intermedle with the imposing of laws upon Christians concerning usage of or abstinence from such things as are in their nature indifferent And it is in this matter for one that our adversaries of Rome are infinitly to blame who notwithstanding the reason of the things themselves and the so clear doctrine of this great Apostle both in this place and in many other have made and constituted a no less number of laws about the distinction of dayes and meats then were among the Jews themselves They have marked more then half of the dayes of the year some with black and others with white I call marked with black those which they have devoted to the sadness of fasts and abstinences as all the Fridayes and Saturdayes of the year the Ember weeks the Rogation-dayes the Advent the Eves and Lent I mean by marked with white those which they consecrate to joy as that great throng of Holy-dayes which they disperse through all the fower seasons JESUS CHRIST the Father of eternity hath made His Disciples free from the laws of time raising them up above the Heavens which do make and measure it But these men put them in subjection to dayes and months and reduce them under the yoke of the Jews and make their piety depend upon the Almanack If they do not exactly observe all the dayes of the year if they fast not one day if they eat not on another if on one they don't do penance if they make not mirth on another though upon the former they should have cause to rejoyce in GOD and upon the latter to afflict themselves for their sins or their sufferings they commit a mortal sin though they did it without contempt or scandal Was there ever a discipline less reasonable or more contrary to the doctrine of S. Paul who would not have Christians condemned for the distinction of a Festival-day of a new Moon or of the Sabbaths who reprehends the Galatians for their observing-dayes and months and times and years Gal. 4.11 Rom. 14 6. and counts it for a weakness in faith to esteem one day above another Neither may it be replyed here that we also do discriminate Sundayes and Easter and Christmas and Pentecoste We observe them for orders sake not for Religion for the Polity of the Church and not upon scruples of devotion For what a confusion would there be if we had no dayes appointed for the assembling of the faithful It 's for our mutual edification and not for the worth and value of the dayes themselves that we observe them and as an Ancient said not that the day on which we do assemble is more holy or more glorious S. Hieâ—ome l. 2. Comment in Ep. ad Gal. To. 9. p 314. then another but because what day soever we assemble it 's a consolation to us to behold our selves all jointly employed in holy exercises For the main to us all dayes are equal as uniform parts of the same time which flow on by the order of one and the same LORD all of them and are all employable to His glory but the necessity and infirmity of this poor life doth constrain us of force to divide and part them out for divers uses If it be thus O adversaries that you discriminate-dayes I shall
to think and medirate on Him and to receive from His hand the Divine fire of His Spirit that we may speak of His wonderful works Our feast of Tabernacles is to live as strangers in the world without cleaving to it still aspiring unto Jerusalem which is above the Mother and the City of the faithful Our new Moons are the praise we continually sound forth unto GOD not with Silver-trumpets but with heart and understanding In fine Our Sabbath is to do not our own will but the will of GOD repressing and restraining the motions and sentiments of our nature that place may be left for CHRIST to work in us so as it may not be we that live but CHRIST who liveth in us This is Christians that true body which was represented heretofore by the Jewish shadows These are your festivals your solemnities and your devotions Keep them holy and celebrate them religiously It is the great Prince of your salvation who hath instituted and consecrated them He recommends them to you every where in His Gospel and hath indissolvably obliged you to them by that death of His the remembrance of which we are to celebrate next LORD's day If you acquit your selves worthily herein be assured that after such stay for a time as you make here below He will raise you up to Heaven there to celebrate with Him and His Angels that last mystical feast of the great day which rising at the point of our Resurrection shall not go down for ever but shine eternally and render us happy in the fruition of that life and immortal glory which was prepared for us before the foundation of the world So be it THE XXVIII SERMON COL II. Ver. XVIII Vers XVIII Let no man master it over you at his pleasure by an humility of spirit and the service of Angels intruding into things which he hath not seen being rashly puffed up with the sence of his flesh DEar Brethren It 's a thing infinitely strange and which shews the extream corruption of our nature more sensibly than any other that men should have so vehement and invincible a passion for the serving of creatures GOD the Soveraign LORD both of them and of the Universe did manifest Himself clearly to them causing the illustrious and glorious marks of His goodness and wisdom and infinite power to shine forth every where above and beneath upon them and about them yea bringing the same home even to their hearts and giving them a feeling of Him by the innumerable benefits which He poureth out continually upon all the parts of their lives In short He shewed Himself and drew near and presented Himself in so lively a manner to their understandings Senses and perceptions that they could not if I may presume to say it be ignorant of Him though they would Besides all this He vouchsafed to reveal Himself to them at the beginning in a particular way speaking familiarly to Adam and Noah and others of the primitive Patriarchs who were the sources of the first and second world Nevertheless you know that notwithstanding all these lights the rage of that passion men had for Idolatry was so violent that it made them forget all these holy and admirable discoveries of the Deity and induced them instead of their great and abundantly good and omnipotent Creator blessed for â—ver to serve the creature and their phrensie rose to such an height that besides the Luminaries of Heaven and the invisible Powers that do govern them as also besides Kings and Sages and persons whom worth or authority had raised above others they were not ashamed to adore yet other things of the lowest in nature as Beasts and Plants and Elements and to compleat their extravagancy they added to all the rest Images and Figures things absolute insensible and unprofitable Changing as the Apostles does reproach them the glory of the uncorruptible GOD Rom. 1.22 into the resemblance of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed Beasts and creeping things This Bruitish error having overwhelmed all mankind the LORD was so gracious that He drew Abraham out of it as a brand out of an universal Conflagration and afterwards manifesting Himself more clearly unto his posterity by the ministry of Moses and giving them His Law He raised up amid this people a publick testimony of His truth against the general misdemeanour of the world fulminating a thousand and a thousand maledictions against all such as served Creatures But the love of Idolatry was so strong as it broke this barr of Heaven and violated this Divine declaration which prov'd to be so far from reducing the Nations to their duty as it could not keep the very Israelites in theirs but they as we learn by their History often gave up themselves to the serving of Creatures At last after so many significations of His mind GOD sent His only begotten the Sun of Righteousness and truth into the world who opened to us the manner and the reasons and causes of the worshipping of GOD and did fully discover that which both the Gentiles were ignorant of by reason of their stupidity and the Jews did but imperfectly know in their minority Now who would think that so shameful and gross an errour as the serving of creatures is should have the shamelesness to shew its self in so noble and so glorious a light Yet you know this wretched passion found the means to content its self bringing in under divers vain but plausible pretences the worshipping of Angels and men by little and little among Christians But however it is not so strange a thing that a corruption should get such ground in the latter ages when it was favoured by an universal ignorance and by a decay of truth and by the depravedness of men such a thing doth frequently come to pass in their disciplines and constitutions commonly as they go on they grow worse That which surpasseth all admiration is that in the time and under the eyes of the holy Apostles of our LORD and Saviour there should be men found of so impudent a spirit as to promote so vile an errour in the profession of Christianity We should scarce be able to believe it if S. Paul did not give us that testimony of it which we even now read to you And GOD permitted it as well to exercise and prove the Church which then was as to confirm ours this occasion having here drawn from the Apostle's pen a clear and magnifick condemnation of this abuse He hath rejected already in the precedent context those observances which the false Teachers he opposeth had taken from the Mosaical Law now he refuâ—es those which they had borrowed from the Philosophers of the World For as we shall shew anon that serving of Angels which these men would have introduced among Christians was a fruit and an invention of Heathen Philosophy S. Paul strikes down this vain impiety in few words Let no man saith he master it ever you at his
universal and eternal and that no Age nor Climat can dispense with men for them or exempt the Violaters of them from that righteous curse they threaten let us faithfully obey this holy and sacred order which the Apostle hath given Hearken we not to the vain glosses and frivolous distinctions by which humane subtilty endeavours to elude it and colour over its own abuses Observe we sincerely what this great Minister of JESUS CHRIST enjoyneth us He forbiddeth us to Worship Angels in point of Religion There is no reason that either the eloquence or the subtilty either the splendor or the power of men much less their pleasure and usurped domineering should have more efficacy upon us than this Heavenly Authothority And praised be GOD for that He hath given us the courage to obey His Apostle in this particular and to put away the Worshipping of Angels and men from among us notwithstanding the strong contradiction of flesh and blood Let us abide firm in this resolution Let us adore none but GOD since there is none adorable but He. It 's just that He alone should be served among us since it is He alone who hath created and redeemed us But Beloved remember I beseech you that rightly to render Him His due glory it is not sufficient to have renounced the errour of those ancient Phrygians whom the Apostle here opposeth and of our Adversaries of Rome to wit the adoration of Angels and men departed There must also be banishing of all strange service all Idolizing of any thing whatever For if GOD cannot suffer those who serve Angels and deceased Saints that is the most excellent natures that be and such as have the image of the Deity most clearly resplendent in them how much less will He endure those that adore Gold and Silver the excrements of the earth or their own belly the shamefullest and most infamous of all idols or the flesh which is but a vain and perishing figure or the grandeurs of the world which are but exhalations And we that have renounced the first fort of these false services how can we be excusable if we retain and exercise the second Now would to GOD we were as free from the one as we are from the other But it must be confessed to our shame these latter kind of Idols have still a great many Devoto's and Servitors among us That avarice which S. Paul calls an Idolatry is but too much exercised among us the flesh and vanity are here publickly served Wretched men where is your judgement You do not serve the Angels of Heaven and you serve the mettals of the earth You do not adore Spirits made perfect and you do adore profane flesh Neither the light of the Sun nor the brightness of the Moon hath been able to seduce your hearts and you have suffered your selves to be seduced by the glittering of Gold and Silver the false Sol and Luna of the Chymists You have put your hope in Gold and said unto fine Gold Thou art my confidence You that have disdained to put your confidence in Saints The belly with shame and horrour do I utter it the belly is your GOD yours who have made this glorious promise to have none but the Eternal only for your GOD How can you hope that the LORD should suffer you to give Him such Monsters for companions He who is so jealous of His glory that He cannot suffer the Angels themselves to be associated with Him Dear Brethren I pray let us deceive our selves no longer Let us once for all put clean away all these false services and exterminating every Idol from among us adore and serve none but GOD alone Let Him have the entire possession of our whole hearts let Him reign and exercise an absolue dominion in them governing all the sentiments and motions of them at His will that after having constantly adored Him in Spirit and in truth we may one day receive from His holy faithful hand the Crown of Glory and Eternity which He hath purchased for us by the merit of His only Son our LORD JESUS CHRIST To whom with Him and the Holy Spirit the true and only GOD blessed for ever be honour and praise unto Ages of Ages Amen THE XXIX SERMON COL II. Vers XVIII XIX Vers XVIII Let no man Master it over you at his pleasure by humility of Spirit and the service of Angels intruding into things he hath not seen beeing rashly puffed up with the sense of his flesh XIX And not holding the head from which the whole body being furnished and fitly knit together by joints and bands encreaseth with the encrease of GOD. DEAR Brethren The same pride that destroyed the first man at the begining is the cause of the ruine of such of his posterity as do perish For if you heed it well you will see that that 's the thing which maketh them despise or mis-embrace the CHRIST of GOD in whom alone stands our salvation It was pride that kept the Jews from embracing this singular gift of Heaven because saith S. John they lov'd the praise of men even as our LORD reproached them saying How can you believe seeing you seek honour one of another And S. Paul expresly informs us that the proud phancy they had to establish their own righteousness was the cause they submitted not to the righteousness of GOD. It was likewise pride that blinded the minds of the Gentiles so as they saw not the wonderful things of the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST The haughty opinion they had of their own vain wisdome induced them to disdain the wisdom of GOD and to account the Cross of His Son foolishness though it be an inexhaustible treasury of sapience Again in fine it is pride that hath seminated among Christians themselves all the heresies that have grown up into any request since the Churches nativity to this hour Ignorance animated with presumption hath brought them all forth and bred them up For if the unhappy workers that divulged them had kept to the doctrine of GOD and not lash'd out beyond what He hath revealed in His word if the vain fierceness of their Spirit had not emboldned them to enterprise things above the reach of men they would never have thought upon corrupting Religion with their falsly-subtil inventions It would have remained pure throughout and sincere to this day and such as the Ministers of our LORD and Saviour deliver'd it at first to their Disciples by word and writing But their pride mis-leading them did induce them to attempt things above their capacity and adore and spread abroad their presumptuous imaginations as true secrets of GOD. The Apostle informs us in this Text that this was the origine in particular of those errors and false services which certain Seducers went about to introduce at that time among Christians We heard in the last exercise upon this subject what their errour was namely that under colour of a false humility of Spirit they taught
and a vapour Again as the creatures there possess true glory so do they exercise true sanctity All of it that 's seen here below is but a little sparkle of the perfection of those blessed inhabitants of that coelestial City The love they bear to their LORD is there perfect as well as the knowledge they have of Him Charity towards our neighbour concord union truth do there reign absolute Their souls have neither affections nor desires but which are conform unto the will of GOD. The light of his face governeth all their motions and shedding abroad its self continually upon them maintains them in an eternal holiness peace and blessedness The LORD JESUS hath discovered to us all these wonders above the Heavens having brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel But further He hath certified us to that these are things which concern us and pertain to us and opened by His cross and resurrection the way that will most assuredly bring us to them If we have the courage to follow Him of what condition or quality so-ever we may be He will congregate us to this holy company of His servants receiving our souls into His bosome upon their departure from this earth and raising up our poor bodies themselves one day revested with His immortality and His glory These be Dear Brethren the things which are above that the Apostle willeth we do seek in the same sense that our Saviour commands us in the Gospel Matth. 6.33 to seek the Kingdom of GOD and His righteousness signifying by that term First that we propose Heaven and Eternity to our selves for the utmost end of our whole life and place our supreme happiness in this rich possession that we make it our grand and only design And secondly that we employ in this noble persuit all the might we have seriously using all the means that the Word of GOD prescribeth us faith invocation piety sanctity and flee as a mortal pest every thing that keeps us off or turneth us aside from this mark For Prov. 21.25 as to the slothful who does nothing all day but desire and sets not his hand to the work he hath no part in those heavenly things His desire kills him saith the wise man as one that feeds on nothing but wind there must be knocking there must be seeking there must be working out our salvation with fear and trembling This treasure is not for cold and languid wills that evaporate altogether in vain wishings It shall be that man's prize who shall take it with an ardent and a generous courage and impulsed with a violent affection spare neither pain nor watching nor labour to obtain it That which the Apostle commandeth us in the following verse namely to mind the things which are above doth amount to well-neer the same sense For the word he useth comprehends the two actions of our souls towards objects we love the one a considering them and thinking on them the other a desiring and embracing them in our affections So you see he obligeth us first to list up our hearts to Heaven where the LORD JESUS is and to have that blessed Kingdom continually before our eyes which GOD hath there prepared for us together with all those great eternal good things wherein it consisteth He requireth that this thought do fill our souls day and night that it be the thought that hath superiority in them that governs all the motions of them the thought that regulateth our resolutions and decideth all our doubts That in all things which shall present themselves we ever reflect hereon to see how they refer unto it and whether they be compatible with it Such was the practise of the Father of the faithful He looked saith the Apostle for a City that hath foundation And Moses the grand legislator of the Jews He had regard saith the same Apostle unto the recompence that is as he explains himself in the Text They minded the things which are above And this thought as you see is also necessarily conjoynt with affection with an ardent desire of possessing such amiable and excellent things and with a stedfast hope of enjoying them at length This is then my Brethren the first of those two duties which the Apostle requireth of us to wit that we seek the things which are above Now unto it he annexeth a prohibition which follows necessarily from it namely that we seek not the things which are upon the earth Heaven and earth being so opposite as it is is not possible but they who seek the things of the one must renounce the things of the other The things of the earth are as you know the goods of the World riches gold silver honours pleasures and the like all that which earthly men the children of this generation do esteem and passionately love He does not mean we should have no care at all about the necessaries of the present life for the good things that refer thereto being gifts of GOD which we cannot be without one may both acquire and serve himself of them with thanksgiving yet not cleave unto them and use them yet not abuse them And the Apostle you know other-where commands us to have care of our families and to do every one his own business and to labour with our hands that we may carry our selves honestly towards them that are without and that we may have lack of nothing But he forbids us to seek the things of the earth in the same sense that he commanded us to seek those of Heaven that is to place our chief good in them and to desire them with choicest affection and prefer them before any other consideration It 's thus that those men sought the things of the earth Phil. 3.12 Luke 14. of whom the Apostle saith elsewhere that the belly was their God and they gloried in their shame and those in the Gospel-parable who preferred the care of their fields and of their oxen and the love of their wives before the call of Heaven Such a one in the Old Testament was that Esan who chose a little pottage of lentils rather than his primogeniture Such in the New were those sordid Gadarens who would have the Son of GOD be gone because He had made them lose their swine and those that love their fathers or mothers or brethren or other alliances or their worldly possessions more than the LORD JESUS or that prefer the praise of men before the praise of GOD. Such a one also was that besotted rich man who thought himself happy enough because he had goods laid up for many years and dreamt of nothing but enjoying them Now though the bare dignity of heavenly things and the meer meanness and unprofitableness of earthly things should be sufficient to recommend the former and to disgust us at the latter yet the Apostle for the swaying of us to duties so just as these sets before us two excellent reasons the first whereof is drawn from our
resurrection with our Saviour He had touched it already in the twelfth verse of the precedent Chapter and 't is from thence he resumes it and reminds us of it here saying If then ye be risen again with CHRIST that is to say since you are risen again with the LORD as I have said and shewed a-fore For the particle if is used here as often else-where by way of illation and concluding not in way of doubting and imports as much as if the Apostle had said since that or seeing that For the rest you plainly see that the Resurrection he speaks of is not that of our bodies which shall not be till the last day but another mystical and spiritual one already accomplished in us by the virtue of our LORD'S resurrection and the efficacy of His Spirit Eph. 2.5.6 He spake of it a-fore at the place we noted and in the Epistle to the Ephesians where he saith that GOD hath quickened us together with CHRIST and raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Him He explains us the mysterie of it else-where in these words Rom. 6. We are saith he buried with Him by Baptisme into His death that as CHRIST is raised from the dead by the glory of the Father so we in like manner should walk in newness of life Every resurrection presupposeth a death preceding For to rise again is nothing else but for one to be restored to life who before was dead Now the estate that men are in under the dominion of sin the Scripture calleth Death because therein they have no sense nor motion in respect of piety and sanctity no more than the dead that rest in the grave have any for the actions of this life Eph. 2.1 Ye were dead in your sins and offences saith the Apostle to the Ephesians speaking of the time of their ignorance Whence is that which our Saviour saith in the Gospel Let the dead bury their dead and which St. Paul sayes 1 Tim. 5.6 the widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth When therefore by the efficacy of the vocation of the Spirit and Gospel of the LORD a man comes to pass out of this miserable condition into the estate of grace receiving the light of Faith into his understanding and Charity and Sanctification into his heart the Scripture to express this wonderful change saith that he is risen again This is precisely the resurrection that St. Paul intendeth in this place He saith that we are risen again with CHRIST First because this blessed change that 's brought to pass in us by His grace is like that change which betided Him when from the grave where He had lain for the space of three daies He was raised unto life by virtue from on high For as He then received the faculties of moving and sensation of which He was deprived in the Sepulchre so we in our regeneration do receive a spirit and a principle of life which we had not before Again as the LORD was restored unto life by the glory of the Father as the Apostle speaks that is by virtue of the exceeding great and glorious power of GOD in like manner are we renew'd and put into the state of grace by the efficacy of the might of GOD and not by the arm of man or the operation of flesh and blood In fine as the LORD upon His rising again did recover not simply that life which He laid down in His dying but another much more excellent and glorious a spiritual a coelestial and an immortal life in like manner we resume in our regeneration not the life of the first Adam before sin from which we were fallen and which how excellent so-ever was nevertheless animal and mortal that is capable of being lost as appeared by the issue but another much more exquisite and perfect a life eternal immutable and like that the blessed Angels live Thus you see the Resurrection of the LORD CHRIST is the idea and pattern of ours But I add in the second place that we are said to be risen again with CHRIST because it is in Him and from Him that we have this grace it being evident that Faith which is the first faculty of the new life doth ingraff and incorporate us into JESUS CHRIST and as the vine-branch doth not live but in its stock so man cannot live that divine life but in his Saviour In fine we are risen again with CHRIST because His resurrection is the cause of ours in such sort as if He had not risen from the dead we should have remained lying in the darkness of our spiritual death CHRIST coming forth out of His grave hath opened and enlightened ours and hath administred out of His own store all things necessary to deliver us out of the miserable estate wherein we were and to put us in possession of the life of Heaven His resurrection hath founded our Faith shewing us clearly that He is the Son of GOD and that His Gospel is true His resurrection hath assured our souls giving us full proof that His death did fully satisfie and content the judge of the World It hath strengthened our hopes making us to see by example of our Head that death the dreadfullest of our enemies cannot impede our happiness Hereupon it hath kindled love of GOD and desire of so great glory in our hearts and finally produced in them the principles the habitudes and dispositions of the new life which are necessary for our attaining unto blissful immortality Since therefore JESUS CHRIST in rising again did thereby raise up our life which had been ingulfed in hell and the curse and brought to light the causes of Faith Hope and Charity the principal faculties of that new life we now have it 's evident that we are risen again in Him and with Him From whence that which the Apostle infers upon it doth no less clearly follow to wit that we ought to mind henceforth the things which are on high and seek them with all our affection For the life unto which we are raised up with our LORD is heavenly and not earthly divine and not natural eternal and not corruptible Since therefore every creature employeth all the sense and affection it hath about things suitable to its life who sees not that the faithful are obliged by the honour they have to be risen again with the LORD neither to breath after nor embrace other things but those that are on high in which their new life doth properly consist And such is the example He hath given us For being risen he abode but a very little time here below only so long as the work of our salvation did require and forthwith ascended into Heaven to draw up our thoughts and affections thither untill our bodies also follow one day being raised up thither as His was unto highest glory And this is the second consideration that the Apostle here lays before us to perswade
us unto so just a duty Seek the things which are above where CHRIST saith he sitteth at the right hand of GOD. For it as our LORD sometime said where our treasure is there be our hearts also where should our souls be but in Heaven since it is in that blessed dwelling place that their treasure doth reside JESUS their good their life and their joy in whom is hidden all our felicity In time past under the Mosaical Law the faithful alwaies turned their eyes and thoughts towards the Temple at Jerusalem because it was the abiding place of the pledges of GOD's covenant with them and of the most precious symbols of His presence and glory Judge what our affection and earnestness should be for Heaven which containeth the true Ark of GOD where all the fulness of His Godhead dwelleth not in shadow and figure but really and bodily But there is more yet JESUS CHRIST is our Head and we His members How can we conserve this honour but in keeping close to Him and following Him faithfully without ever separating from Him or withdrawing from that Sanctuary where He dwelleth And indeed He expresly assures us in the Gospel that He willeth we should be where He is and that where the dead body is there also the Eagles gather together so as if we be truly of the number of His Eagles it is not possible but we should take our flight to Heaven since this divine body of our LORD and Saviour is there And hereby you see dear Brethren to note it by the way how distant the doctrine of St. Paul is from that of Rome For whereas the Apostle elevateth our hearts from earth to Heaven Rome brings them down as far as in her lyeth from Heaven to the earth fastning the hearts of her zealots on her material altars and ciboires which she pretends the LORD is enclosed in against the suffrage of the whole Church who hath ever constantly applied these words of the Apostle particularly to the Sacrament of the Eucharist exhorting the faithful when they celebrate it to have their hearts above Sure if JESUS CHRIST be here below as Rome would have it the Apostle does ill to command us to mind the things which are above and worse again in urging for a reason of it that it 's above that JESUS CHRIST resideth If for that the LORD is in Heaven we ought according to the Apostles instruction not to seek any thing on earth how much less I beseech you ought we to seek the LORD Himself there I do not advertise you that this is to be understood of the presence of the humane nature of JESUS CHRIST For you know that He is every where as to the essence and providence of His Divinity And as to the grace of His Spirit and the efficacy and virtue of His will and institutions we readily confess that the same is not confined to the Heavens and doth extend and shew its self wheresoever He pleaseth according to the promise He hath made us to be in the midst of us when we are assembled in His Name But the Apostle doth not barely say that JESUS is in Heaven He adds that He sitteth at the right hand of GOD. Divers Doctors have belaboured themselves much in the explicating of these words and at length there are some that have strangely disguised them as if they signified that our LORD 's humane nature had been invested with all the properties of the Divinity which would be no other thing but that it was transform'd into a Divine nature a conceit which all true Christians have horrour for confessing that the two natures do remain each of them in its integrity having been united in JESUS CHRIST but not blended together nor confused The Apostle if we please to hear him will tell us in two words what it is to sit at the right hand of GOD. For in the 15th Chapter of the first Epist to the Corinthians speaking of the estate to which JESUS CHRIST hath been exalted in the Heavens and in which he shall abide constantly unto the end instead of its being said by the Prophet from whom the expression was taken in Psal 110. that the LORD should fit at the right hand of the Father he saith simply that He shall reign till He hath put all His enemies under His feet an evident sign that this sitting at the right hand of the Father is nothing else but that supreme dominion which hath been given Him over all things and which He doth and shall exercise unto the end of all ages inasmuch as GOD hath made Him LORD Acts 2.36 and CHRIST as St. Peter speaks And this consideration doth again mightily strengthen the holy Apostle's exhortation For since Heaven is the throne on which the Prince of the Universe doth sit and from which He dispenseth and governeth all things at His will there is great reason we should turn our eyes thither-ward and have this Royal Court of our Soveraign in mind night and day to comfort our selves under the trouble that either the iniquity of men and devils or the intemperateness of other creatures does give us and to form our manners and all the parts of our life after the will and by the example of so great and so holy a Monarch Behold the Lesson Beloved Brethren which the Apostle gives us at this time that we seek not low but high things not those of the earth but the things of Heaven since we are risen up with JESVS CHRIST who is sat down on high in Heaven at the right hand of GOD. What would there be in all the World more happy than we if we took up a good and a firm resolution to obey Him and practise the thing He enjoyneth us These fears and these desires and so many other vain passions which trouble our whole life would have no more place in us We elevated far above that which men unprofitably covet or possess or apprehend should with Angels enjoy a Divine contentment From that glorious Heaven where we should be we should despise the vanities and variations of the earth and see its seasons pass on and its elements roul about and its idols perish and its pleasures fleet away without any perturbation being secure that none of its storms can ever reach that high and inaccessible region where our hearts and lives would be We should look upon death without terrour knowing that it could not take any of those things from us which we possess on high We should suffer all the accidents of this life without emotion because they can change no part of the things we have in Heaven The charms also and illusions of the World would touch us as little as its menaces and raging because the fruition of a greater good would render us insensible for lesser ones as the presence of the Sun puts out the shining of the stars Being content with Heaven and its eternity we should covet nothing more and satisfied
CHRIST hath given us in raising us again with Himself doth oblige us These thoughts and works of Heaven are necessary productions of the principles and faculties of that life unto which we have been raised up You can neither be Christians without having part in the resurrection of our LORD nor have part in His resurrection except you walk with Him and wear that lightsome robe of sanctity wherewith He vesteth all the associates of His resurrection He Himself calleth us hereto from that lofty Throne whereon He sitteth at the right hand of GOD Faithful soul saith He to each of us look unto me and I will give thee light Fear not for I govern the Heavens and the earth Only fix thine eyes thy thoughts and thine heart on me and I will guide thee by my counsel and receive thee one day into my glory Dear Brethren this He doth promise us and of this He will give us earnest next LORD's-day at His holy table Let us do what He demands of us or to say better let us pray Him to do it in us and He will assuredly do what He promiseth us Unto Him unto the Father and unto the Holy Spirit the true and only GOD blessed for ever be honour praise and glory to ages of ages Amen THE THIRTY THIRD SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER III IV. Verse III. For ye are dead and your life is hid with CHRIST in GOD. IV. When CHRIST who is your life shall appear then shall ye also appear with Him in glory DEAR Brethren The LORD JESUS being not only the author and the cause but also the pattern and exemplar of that great Salvation which GOD of His infinite mercy offereth to mankind in the Gospel it is not possible that we should have part in it or assuredly enter into this rich possession without having in us a resemblance of the same soveraign LORD and being as so many copies of this Divine Original where all His features and lineaments may appear though in a form and measure much less perfect and eminent than His. Rom. 8.28 Of this the Apostle expresly informeth us in his Epistle to the Romans saying that those whom GOD did fore-know that is love and discriminate from the rest of men according to His good pleasure to communicate really faith and eternal salvation unto them He did also predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son Heb. 2.12 13. For this cause He doth us the honour to call us sometimes His children and sometimes His brethren by reason of the resemblance we have with Him the nature the condition the quality and as 't is commonly termed the fortune of children following the fathers and of brethren being like their elder brothers Whence the Apostle concludes in the Epistle to the Hebrews that He who sanctifyeth that is the LORD JESUS Heb. 8.11 and they who are sanctified that is the faithful are all of one that is of one and the same mass of one and the same form and nature And to make it plain to us the Scripture compareth Him sometimes to a Vine-stock Jo. 15. Rom. 11. otherwhile to an Olive-tree of each of which we are branches all of them things between which there is by nature a strict communion the one and the others having the same constitution and qualities And thence again it is that Saint Paul calleth Him our first-fruits when speaking of our death and the resurrection which is to succeed it he saith that CHRIST was made the first fruits of them that slâ—ep 1 Cor. 15.20 the first-fruits as you know being of the same condition and nature with the rest of those things out of the mass whereof they are taken Now although this consormity of the faithful with the LORD JESUS be of a large extent yet it doth principally appear in two heads wherein the Scripture doth particularly consider it to wit in His Death and in His Resurrection the happy remembrance whereof we have celebrated this morning For the death of JESUS CHRIST hath produced a death like it in all true believers reducing them by its efficacy and virtue unto a state conform to His when He was stretched out on the Cross and lay in the Sepulchre In like manner His Resurrection transmitteth into them a life like that which He resumed when having overcome death He issued out of His grave His Death is not only the cause but also the pattern of ours and likewise His Life is both the principle and exemplar of ours It 's of this death and this life Dearly beloved Brethren the effect and the image of the Death and Resurrection of the LORD that we make account to entertain you in this action For after our having celebrated the memory of the death and resurrection of this Great Saviour and participated of the one and the other by the vertue of His Spirit and our Faith what can we more pertinently meditate than the precious fruit which each of them produceth in us and the images of the one and the other of these mysteries which this Divine dead and again risen perâ—â—â— doth draw and form in us inasmuch as He changeth us after a sort into Himself by an impression of His omnipotent vertue so as if we have truly receiv'd Him we are become dead and risen again with Him St. Paui teacheth us this excellent and saving truth in the series of our ordinary Texts by these words which we have read for the subject of this exercise In those that preceded which we expounded eight daies since this great Apostle drew us from the earth that he might elevate us to Heaven where JESUS sitteth at the right hand of the Father Seek saith he the things which are above and not the things which are on the earth But because he knew how difficult such a transportation would be for persons who are still so many waies fastned to the earth to work so high a design thoroughly into us besides the reasons already represented which were taken from our resurrection with the LORD and from His presence and glorious soveraignty in the places he would elevate us to he further proposes two more for that end in this passage The one taken from our death For saith he ye are dead and the other from that new life which we have received a life hidden it 's true for the present in GOD but such as will be plainly and plenarily discovered one day at the manifestation of the LORD JESUS Your life saith he is hid with CHRIST in GOD. When CHRIST c. These are the two principal points we will treat of in this action the grace of our LORD assisting and Him we invocate praying that this word of His may be effectually in us His power to salvation throughly changing us into the similitude both of His salutary death and of His glorious life that being dead unto our selves we may not live henceforth but in Him unto His honour and the edification
a as glass darkly 1 Cor. 13 1â— Phil. 3.12 and that we have not yet apprehended nor are already perfect By reason whereof he compares our condition here below to childhood during which there is imperfection in our thoughts words and judgements Whereas in that other blessed world 1 Cor. 13.11 we shall see face to face and know as we have been known and all that is in part being done away we shall be at the highest pitch of perfection and in the full vigour of a truly mature age Withal this body which makes up a part of our being is yet subject to the laws of natural life nor can it be sustained but by the use of terrene and corruptible elements and by the low and vile functions of eating and drinking and sleeping Whereas that divine life which we have in JESUS CHRIST is freed from all these infirmities requiring a coelestial and in some sort spiritual body which is conserved by the sole vertue of the quickening spirit without needing the commerce of any earthy and perishing things Whence it does appear that to speak properly and exactly we shall not have this blessed life till after the last resurrection We now have but title to it and the first buddings the rudiments and initials of it which is the thing the Apostle excellently signifies when speaking of Himself and of all the faithful he saith that we have the first-fruits of the Spirit Rom. 8.22 that is as it were the first lineaments of this divine and spiritual nature whereof the LORD hath made us partakers to use St. Peter's words 2 Pet. 1.4 Wherefore St. Paul here doth at once very truly and very admirably well say that our life that is the life we have by JESUS CHRIST is for the present hid with CHRIST in GOD because the Father doth yet keep it in His hand reserving the full displaying of it in us unto the time He hath fore-ordained in His counsel Untill then it doth not appear but abideth hidden in GOD as a sure and certain effect in its true and immutable cause The world sees it not in us and the first-fruits of it we already have are to it so unknown that far from believing we have any life more excellent than its own it accounts us on the contrary the miserablest and despicablest creatures of the earth and doth think our life to be foolishness and meer frensie and judgeth that the end thereof will be without honour as the Author of the Book of Wisdom well saith And in truth Wisd 5 3 GOD doth most frequently put this heavenly treasure in earthen vessels and chooseth for this blessed life persons weak and contemptible and such as are of no consideration among the men of the World as St. Paul expresly observes neither is there in them 1 Cor. 1.26 27. Isa 53.2 any more than was sometime in their head either form or comelyness or any thing that should induce those that see them to desire them Whereto may be added the afflictions that do extremely disfigure them and darken that little lustre which they have Aimd these meanesses and infirmities it is hard to discern any one ray of that glory they are destinated to Themselves in their great tentations enter into doubt of it And when the spirit that quickens them doth for their consolation discover the perfections and wonders of their future life most clearly and with the greatest evidence so it is that notwithstanding this that which they see and taste of it is so small a matter in comparison of what they shall have in the end that it might well be said their life is hidden in reference to themselves And thus St. 1 Joh. 3.2 John informeth us Beloved saith he we are now children of GOD but it doth not yet appear what we shall be But we may not forget what the Apostle here adds to wit that our life is hid in GOD with CHRIST whereby he signifies two things first that CHRIST is yet at present in some sort and in some sense hidden to wit in regard of the glory of His person For though His Salvation and His dominion have been discovered by His Gospel unto every creature both Jews and Gentiles yet having withdrawn His up-risen and glorified humane nature up to Heaven into the Sanctuary and He from thence governing His kingdom by the secret motions of His spirit His person remaineth hidden from the eyes of the World this great veil of the Heavens which on all sides environeth the Sanctuary into which He is entred hindring us from seeing His glory how sparkling and radiant soever it be Secondly the Apostle signifieth by these words that our life is properly and directly in CHRIST that he is the source and the cause of it and that two manner of waies the one in that He merited it for us by His sufferings the other in that He produced and formed it in us by His Spirit by reason whereof He is called the Author and the Prince of life and St. John saith Joh. 1.4 that life is in Him Then again our life is in CHRIST as in its original pattern wherein at present doth exist the true and perfect form of that sanctity glory perfection and immortality in which the life we shall be invested with consisteth Wherefore He is termed our elder brother our principle or beginning and our first-fruits as we have said at the entrance of this discourse From whence there redoundeth unto us a great and a firm consolation against all the tempests of the present World when we consider that how sad and frightful soever at times our undoing is yet we live in GOD and in His CHRIST CHRIST is the sacred and inviolable stock that beareth us in which the sap of our life is perfectly safe above the rigors of winter and ardors of summer and all other perils that menace us GOD is faithful and CHRIST is living and it is not possible that either the one should deny Himself or the other dye Since then the Father is the depositary and the Son the stock of our life let us make sure account that though we feel it but feebly and faintly in our selves yet we have it and possess it and shall eternally have it so as nothing shall be ever able to extinguish it Let this sweet hope sustain us and cause us to wait patiently for the term of that full and entire manifestation which the Apostle in the sequel promiseth us When CHRIST your life shall appear then saith he you also shall appear in glory His calling CHRIST our life is a brave expression full of force and emphasis sutable to that we read in Jeremy where speaking of the LORD 's anointed Lam. 4.20 he calleth him the breath of our nostrils to signifie that it is upon him our whole life dependeth and that if we may so say it is by his sacred mouth we draw our breath Thus the Apostle's saying
Sanctifie this earth during the time you tarry on it and change it as much as may be into Heaven adorning it with an Angelick life and conversation This is the way to make sure your crown For it will not be given in Heaven but to those that have desired and sought it in the time of their abode on earth None shall reap eternal life but they that have sowed to the Spirit No man shall have fruition above but he that hath hoped here below and no man hopeth here below but he that cleanseth himself from the filth of vices He that hath this hope in JESVS CHRIST purifieth himself saith St. John Represent incessantly unto your selves this glorious coming of the Son of GOD. Consider that He will not long delay Yet as little a while as may be and he that should come will come Consider that He will come on the sudden as lightning which in an instant shines out from the clouds and as the thief that comes at the point of time he was least looked for How much will our confusion be if He should surprise us in the disorder of our worldly affections and occupations But GOD forbid that this should betide us He hath waited sufficiently for us Let us employ that little time which is left us with so much the more care the less we have had for that which is past Let us watch let us pray let us be doing Let us work out our salvation with fear and trembling Let us lead lives worthy of the name of Christians which we bear worthy of the Master whom we serve and of the food He hath given us and of the love He hath born us and of the glory He keeps for us cleansing our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit and waiting with an holy joy and setled patience for the revelation of this great GOD and Saviour to His Glory and our Salvation Amen THE THIRTY FOURTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER V. Verse V. Mortifie therefore your members which are upon the earth fornication unclearness inordinate appetite evil concupiscence and covetousness which is idolatry DEAR Brethren In all the designs of our lives the End is the principle that moveth us to act and the rule of our actions The fair aspect it gives us is the thing that inslameth our hearts and kindleth in them the desire of possessing it which thereupon awakeneth the powers of our souls and causeth each of them to employ what ability and industry they have in the pursuit the understanding its light to find out and make a due choice of means fit to conduct us in it the will and affections and other faculties of our nature which depend upon them their motions to get these means and set them on work All this is done as you know and experiment it daily only to attain that End we have proposed to our selves The ends which men aim at are infinitely different and oftentimes even contrary to one another and consequently their courses very different also as if some went East and others West or some took their way Southward and others their march Northward Yet notwithstanding such diversity of intentions and prosecutions they are all incited and led on in the self-same manner there being not one of them but the desire of some end he loveth hath seized and swayed unto action and at length induced to take the course he steers according to the passion he hath for the attainment of it and the judgement his understanding makes of means proper to bring him to it The end therefore being the first spring that setteth us a going the principle of our motions and as it were the North of our course the guide and measure of our actions You see My Brethren that it infinitely concerneth us to take it right and having once taken it to have it continually before our eyes for the referring and addressing of all our travails to the same Wherefore our LORD condemns those as unadvised and injudicious persons who enterprise a design without having first duly considered it without having sate down and taken their counters in hand and exactly calculated all the cost that is without having maturely and composedly examin'd what the thing is which they desire and what abilities they have to compass it as that ridiculous builder who laid the foundation of a Tower and was then constrained to give over not having wherewithal to finish it For this reason also the Masters of Moral Philosophy that they might rightly form their scholars to it have been wont to set before their eyes the felicity of man that is his End for the enkindling a love and desire of it in their hearts and then they propose to them the means that are to be used to attain it Such is the method that the holy Apostle hath followed in this part of his divine discourse which we are explicating to you He shewed us at the entrance Heaven and JESUS CHRIST who reigneth there sitting at the right-hand of His Father together with that life and immortality and glory which He keeps for and promiseth to His faithful ones This is the end we should tend unto Seek said He the things which are in Heaven and I perswade my self there is not a man so stupid and savage but an object so good and so desirable does make impression upon and possess with love of it and a secret passion to obtain it Now though the splendor of so noble and so sublime an happiness should as soon as it appears put out all that fallacious appearance of the things of the earth wherein the children of this world do vainly seek their good and which they foolishly take for the end of their lives yet the Apostle to preserve us from this error and fully inform us of our true end hath further expresly advised us not to place it in things here below Mind not the things saith he which are upon the earth Having therefore each of you setled this divine end of your lives in his heart according to the Apostles doctrine look at it continually Let it be night and day before your eyes This thought alone is capable to direct all your steps to govern all your actions to purifie your souls to render you invincible against all your enemies to conserve the peace and the joy of GOD in you and maintain His consolations in you amid the greatest storms Yet this doth not satisfie our Apostle He not content with having mark'd out our aim to us and shewed in general what we ought to decline doth particularize us the means we are to use for arriving one day at that blessed Heaven whither he had elevated our hearts He discovers to us and tells us one by one the shelves and dangerous passages of our course and finally goes over the most part of our duties in the conduct of this grand design He begins with vices of the flesh and of the earth the two pernicious pests of
any other of the Ministers of JESUS CHRIST doth any where injoyn us to wear hair-cloth or to disfigure our countenances with a multitude of fasts and watchings or to go barefoot or to put on a cowl or renounce the usage of any of the meats which GOD hath created for our service much less to cover our selves with dung and filth or to gore our selves all over with disciplines Isa 1.12 God will one day say to those that amuse themselves in such mortifications Who hath required this at your hands and why have ye suffered so much in vain Gal. 3.4 The only mortification he demands of us is that of the old man that we beat down our vices and not that we rend our bodies that we deface our passions and not our countenances that we renounce our lusts and not His gifts That we give the discipline to our manners and not our shoulders As for our selves My Brethren I acknowledge that we have renounced the mortification of the superstitious the misery is we do not practise that which is our Saviours though without it no man can have part in Him or His kingdom as the Apostle intimates plainly enough here where he doth not own any person for a member of CHRIST risen who is not dead and else-where he affirms in expresse terms that they that are CHRIST's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts We amuse not our selves in bodily exercise No but neither do we more heed that of the spirit We spare our hearts no less than our bodies and do not treat the vices of the one any whit more roughly than the skin of the other Men see sufficiently by the actions of our lives that the members of this old man whom the cross of CHRIST hath condemned unto death remaining very far from being dead are scarce wounded in us that they are not so much as scratch'd that they live in us in their full strength and vigour and no more feel our Saviour's nails and thorns than if He had not died or we not believed in Him at all Our adversaries are nor to seek how to charge it home upon us and it is the only one of their arguments that puts us to confusion We easily answer all their other reproaches There 's none but this wherein our consciences enforce us to separate the cause of JESUS CHRIST and of His Gospel from our own For if His truth were to be judged of by the quality of our deportments who could defend it seeing the horrible disorder that generally appeareth in our lives Let us consider only the two articles here touched by the Apostle unchastity and avarice In conscience is the one and the other of these two passions dead among us Have they not as great a vogue as among the men of the World Is the modesty of youth the honesty of marriage is chastity and temperance better practised here than other-where Doth the fordidnesse and eagernesse of avarice less appear Verily I am extremely asham'd to say it all is alike except that those without do confess and discipline themselves and macerate their flesh with some kind of fasts and say their chappelet whereby at least they shew some sense of their faultinesse though they apply ineffectual and ridiculous remedies of it Whereas we after committing the same faults and dabling in the same filth come to present our selves impudently here without fearing GOD or having shame of men And if the voice of the LORD that resoundeth in this place do draw some sigh from us at our going hence we return every one to our vices as pleasant and as obstinate as ever GOD is so good that He hath hitherto attended our repenting But let us beware lest our obduratenesse do change His patience into fury and constrain Him in the end to punish such a refractory contempt of His word and His favours and avenge the affront we do His Gospel by living so ill in so fair and so divine a light Let us all descend into our selves Let us examine our carriage and our consciences Let each one interrogate himself Come my soul after so many moneths and years that JESUS CHRIST hath so carefully instructed thee what pains hast thou taken to conform thy self to Him and to imprint the image of His death and of His life upon thy behaviour Hast thou nailed thine old man to His cross Hast thou mortified his members Hast thou deprived them of that wretched vigour which they display with so much efficacy in the children of disobedience Do they leave thee at rest Or when they begin to trouble thee hast thou the courage to resist them Doth not avarice stretch out thine hand upon the goods of others or doth it not with-hold the same from imparting of thine own unto the poor Hast thou not felt its vain sollicitudes and fruitless melancholies it's insatiable cupidity and unbridled eagerness and that impudence it hath to despise and violate honesty laws and decency for the satisfying its inordinate desires But if avarice hath not importun'd thee tell me my soul hath not the lust of the eyes and the vanity of the flesh at one time or other insnared thee Hath not this traiterous Dalila lulled thee asleep Hast thou guarded the glory of that Nazareat to which GOD hath consecrated thee from her ambushments Brethren let us thus catechize our souls daily and about our other duties as well as these Let us not pardon them any thing Judge we them righteously and with inexorable severity Chastise them for all their faults and bringing them down at the feet of GOD make them weep and grone in His presence Let us reproach them with their ingratitudes and set before their eyes the benefits of GOD and the offences with which they have recompensed Him Denounce we also His judgements on them and the horror of His dreadful vengeance and not give them over untill they have taken a full and firm resolution to return no more to their ingratitudes Above all Dear Brethren let us make them hate and detest those two pests which the Apostle hath to day so solemnly condemned to dye to wit luxury and covetousnesse Let us execute his just sentence upon these two passions and cause them to suffer that death which they so many waies deserve For as to the first it impudently profaneth a body which belongs to JESUS CHRIST was redeemed by His blood washed with His heavenly water fed with His flesh and consecrated by His spirit Rends it from the communion of that divine body of which it is become a member to change it into one of the members of Satan Bereaves it of its glory and despoils it of the greatest honour it had and drawing it out of Heaven whither GOD had called it drags it into Hell I know well that men of the world flatter themselves and extenuate this sin And I am not ignorant that there are people among our selves who suffer themselves to be
put off the old man and put on the new it is evident that in this renovation of our nature we do not lose the very substance of it nor acquire another new one but only quit that unworthy and wretched form which sin gave it and assume another which resembles that of JESUS CHRIST I acknowledge that that old form which we put off had seized on and blasted and disfigured all the parts of our nature both internal and external as also that the new one which we receive in JESUS CHRIST doth extend its self likewise to them all in which respect the one and the other differeth from a garment which covers but the outside and reaches not further in yet they both are notwithstanding another thing than the Subject it self which is uncloth'd or cloath'd with them as an habit is another kind of thing than the body it covereth The one is at it were the rust as it were the poyson the malady the loathsomness and deformity of our nature The other is the beauty the health the perfection the ornament and honour of it and as it were the jewel that gives it all it hath of worth and value Neither let the terms of Old and new Man trouble you For they are often made use or in all languages to signifie the qualities and not the very essentials of our nature as when we say of a person who was once vicious and debauched but is now become honest and vertuous that he is another man a new Man though to speak properly he have the same substance the same soul and the same body he had before and hath quitted nothing of his former nature but the bad habitudes it was vested with not the substance of his Being Thus it is in regard of the Old and new Man The substance of the subject remains the same under the one and the other There is nothing changed but its formâ— and quality And it 's thus also that we are to understand what after the Prophets S. Peter hath said namely 2 Pet. 3.13 That at the last manifestation of the Son of GOD there shall be new Heavens and a new Earth For these creatures which now subsist shall not be annihilated On the contrary S Paul saith Rom. 8.20 That they shall have part in the deliverance of the sons of GOD but because they shall be purged from all vanity and put into an estate much more excellent than that wherein they now sigh and languish therefore they are called new Heavens and a new Earth As for what remains The Apostle injoyns us expresly both here and elsewhere to put off the old Man and to put on the New because in truth these are two different things even as to depart from evil and to do good It is very true that in the estate men are no one puts off the old Man but puts on the New and so on the contrary and again as true it is that the same Spirit of JESUS CHRIST which effecteth the one doth also effect the other even as the Sun by one and the same action dispelleth the darkness of our Air and diffuseth into it light yet this hinâ—ers not but that considering the matter simply and absolutely in its self the putting off of the old Man is one thing and the putting on of the New another For the corruption of the old Man is not a meer absence and privation of the sanctity of the New neither is vertue a meer privation of vice as darkness is nothing at all but a simple privation of light Otherwise it were to be said that the new man is every-where where the Old is not and so on the contrary as where there is no light darknes doth of necessity take place and so on the contrary But though these two actions of putting off the old Man and putting on the New be different in themselves yet are they inseparably joyned with one another and in the state we now are it is not possible that any person should devest himself of sin and of the misery of his old Man without vesting himself with the New because there is no other way of salvation but the Communion of CHRIST into which no one ever enters without putting on the new Man It 's in this that all our salvation consisteth But because those false Teachers which troubled the Church at that time did pretend to the prejudice of this Doctrine that Circumcision and divers other external things were necessary in Religion as if they were sufficient to save us without the new Man or at least the new Man were not sufficient to save us without them the Apostle doth reject this error of theirs here which he refuted afore and to this purpose in speaking of the new Man addeth Where there is neither Greek nor Jew neither circumcision nor uncircumcision neither Barbarian nor Scythian nor bond nor free but CHRIST is all and in all His meaning is not that among those whom JESUS CHRIST converteth to new men by vertue of his Gospel there are none that be by extraction Jews or Greeks Barbarians or Scythians and for condition bond or free circumcised or uncircumcised nor likewise that these differences are in themselves none or ought not to be considered at all either in nature or in the state and politick order On the contrary he himself will hereafter establish the difference of bond-men and free and command us to observe it in civil life But what he saith must be restrained and appropriated precisely to his intention and design without extending it any further He speaks of the new man and saith that no one of these differences doth take place in him He meaneth therefore simply that in this respect that is in what concerns the nature of the new man all these different qualities and conditions are no way considerable that as to it they have no force nor vertue that neither the nobleness of the Jew nor the advantage of circumcision nor the liberty of the free doth serve at all to bring us neer the new man and communicate him to us that the knowledge of the Greek and the rudeness of the Barbarian and the uncircumsion of the Gentile and the meanness of the slave doth not remove us further off from him That a man both may not participate of him with the first of these qualities and may with the last It 's the same thing that he saith else-where Gal. 6.15 even that in JESVS CHRIST neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature and again That in CHRIST 3.28 there is neither Jew nor Greek nor bond nor free nor male nor female because they are all one in JESVS CHRIST He excludes hereby first the pretended advantage of the Jew above the Greek For the Jews so foolishly presum'd upon their birth that they imagin'd it sufficient to render them acceptable unto GOD and they haughtily disdained the Greeks as accursed and abominable by
They forbid all Christians to read the Bible without the Bishops or the Inquisitors permission But they presently declare that no Bishop nor Inquisitor hath power to give any Thus there shall no person be permitted it Is not this an evident mocking of the world But these gallants do so hugely dread the Scripture that they had rather become guilty of thus shamefully and openly deluding Christendom than suffer any one to have or read so dangerous a Book They would rather salve their interest than their honour And in very deed such the practice is in Spain and Italy and in the Territories of the Inquisition where this permission to read the Bible is not given to any man whoever he be and where it 's held for a capital crime and a sure mark of Heresie to have in house but a volume of the Old or New Testament in the vulgar tongue So as it must of necessity be that those who do in these parts permit this reading unto some are either guilty of violating the general ordinances of that Church they profess themselves members of or have some particular and extraordinary power from the Pope to do as they do which yet doth not appear This crime would be less strange if it did clash only with this passage of the Apostle But it also overturneth divers other most expresse instructions Deut. 17.18 19. which occur in the holy Scriptures For GOD commands the King of Israel who was a Laick noâ— a Clerk to write a copy of His law and to have it by him Deut. 11.18 19. 6.7 8 9. and read it diligently and generally all His people to lay up all His words in their hearts and in their minds to bind them for signs upon their hands and for frontlets between their eyes that is to have them as familiar as their own hands and eyes to teach them their children and discourse of them at home and abroad lying down and rising up and write them on the posts of their houses and on their gates which is just the same thing St. Paul here calls in short an having the word of GOD to dwell in them In effect St. Luke praiseth the Ethiopian Eunuch Acts 8.28 17.11 for that he read the Scriptures and the men of Berea for that they consulted them daily to know if the things which Paul and Silas preached to them were so Yet we no where read Psal 1.2 that they had leave of any Papal Bishops or Inquisitors And David pronounceth that man blessed who meditateth day and night in the law of GOD. Again Joh. 20.31 the word of GOD being written that we might believe that JESVS is the CHRIST and that believing we might have life through His Name as saith St. John Rom. 15.4 and for our learning as saith St. Paul that we through patience and comfort might have hope It must of necessity be concluded that the forbidding of Christians to read the Scriptures evidently is either a frustrating the LORD of His intention or an accusing Him of having been unable to give us Scriptures proper for His aim and our aid I say as much and that more positively of the Apostolical Epistles which being directed to the faithful Clergie and Laity indifferently there is no reason to bar any of them from reading what the first Ministers of GOD wrote to them all In fine the fault of our adversaries is so much the more inexcusable for that the ancient Doctors of whom they make so great account Homil. 9. on Levitie are directly contrary to them in this particular As Origen for one who would have Christians not only hear the word of GOD in the Church but exercise themselves in reading it at home and in meditating on it night and day St. Hierom for another Hierom. Ep. 14. 30. August lib. de Catech. rud c. 6.8 Gregor in his Epistles lib. 4. Ep. 40. who would have women and maids themselves to learn the Scriptures by heart St. Augustine for a third who does most earnestly recommend the reading of the word of GOD to the very Catechumeni that is Christians of the lowest form such as had not yet received holy Baptism St. Gregory the Great that famous Bishop of Rome for a fourth who gravely reproves a Physician of the Court for that he took not the pains to read the words of our Redeemer every day For what is holy Scripture saith he but a letter from GOD to His creature If you were in a far Countrey and there received letters from the Emperor your Master you would not be at rest nor sleep at your case till you had read them and perceiv'd what your earthly Prince should have vouchsafed to write you The Monarch of Heaven the LORD of men and Angels hath sent and conveyed to your hands His letters about the concernments of your life And yet my Son you deign not to read them Apply to them I beseech you and meditate daily your Creator's sayings Thus Gregory more than a thousand years a-go Judge how far the language of later Popes is from his spirit and from his principles I pass by other Doctors of antiquity who are no less contrary to this modern abuse and will only mention further John of Antioch Bishop of Constantinople to whom the Church hath given the name of Chrysostome that is Golden mouth because of the richness and sweetnesse of his incomparable eloquence he alone would furnish a man with enough to make a small volume if any would put together all the passages of his works in which he exhorteth all the faithful and in special those of the people to an assiduous reading of the Holy Scripture and particularly in the Sermon he made upon this very Text of the Apostle which we are expounding Hear Chrysost Homil 9. in Ep. ad Coloss saith he you that live in the World and have wife and children hear how he orders you yea you principally to read the Scriptures not slightly and heedlesly but with great care and diligence He would have them heed no other master You have saith he to them the oracles of GOD and no one can teach you so well as these divine books And a little after Have saith he the books of the Bible the true medicines of the soul Get at least the New Testament the Acts of the Apostles the Gospels Let these be your perpetual Masters and Teachers If any affliction befall you loss of goods of children or of friends if death it self present its self unto you make search forthwith in this book as in the store-house of coelestial medicaments and fetch out of it the remedies that are necessary for the mitigating of your miseries Or rather that you may not be put to the trouble of such search lay them all up in your soul and have them ready upon all occasions Ignorance of the Scriptures is the cause of all our evils Thus far Chrysostome And truly as you
have you observ'd examples of them What would S. Paul say if he were in the world to see his discipline so strangely forgotten among men that make profession to hold him for one of their principal Apostles He recommendeth to us not one of these names to which you oblige your selves He speaks of none but that of the LORD JESUS it 's in that name alone he commands us to do all we do whether in word or work because indeed Acts 4.12 there is none other under heaven given unto men whâ—â—eby we must be sav'd as said S. Peter the same Peter whom you pretend to be the head and the foundation of your Popes S. Paul sure gave and conserved this glory to his LORD's name alone with so much zeal and jealousie that understanding how some in the Church of Corinth joyned in some sort the names of servants of His with it calling themselves 1 Cor. 1.12 some of Paul others of Apollos others of Cephas and others of CHRIST as you see among our adversaries at this day some call themselves of Augustine others of Francis and others of JESVS this Holy man cryes out upon it as a Sacriledge and an utter overthrowing of Religion Is CHRIST divided saith he was Paul crucified for you Ibid ver 13. or were you baptized in the name of Paul Prescribing by these words or rather by this flash of lightning that the faithful ought not either call or distinguish themselves or glory or speak or do whatever in Religion in any other name than that of this holy and merciful LORD who was crucified for them and in whose name alone they were baptiz'd Yea he thanketh GOD that he had administred baptism but to few of them lest any once should thence taken occasion to believe or say that he had baptiz'd in his own name Then a little after resuming the discourse so much took he the thing to heart 1 Cor. 3 4 5 9. Are you not carnal saith he to these people while one of you says I am of Paul and another I am of Apollos Who then is Paul and who is Apolloâ— but Ministers by whom you believed even as the LORD gave to every man Ye are GOD's Husbandry Ye are GOD's building Is not this a telling us plainly that we ought neither bear the name of any other than of GOD nor act in matters of piety in any name but that of JESUS CHRIST In which likewise he here commandeth us to do and say all that we shall act in word or work But having considered what the Apostle affords us here against error for the instruction of our faith let us now observe what he teacheth us for the correction of our manners which is his principal intention He teacheth us My Brethren that if we will be truly faithful persons and Christians as we make profession to be we must have JESUS CHRIST continually before our eyes must examine address and sute our actions our speeches and purposes unto the name of CHRIST take it for the North-star in our course and in one word for the rule of our whole life That we never do any thing little or great otherwise than in His name That His name be the only motive inducing us to speak and act and the only mark at which our words and actions tend Think now first how great our confusion ought to be The Apostle willeth that whatever we do in word or work we do it all in the name of the LORD JESVS and the most of us quite contrary do almost nothing in His Name Heaven and earth are witnesses that the name of JESUS hath no part in our works or words They are all consecrated to His enemies they are inspired by their spirit and aim at nothing but their interests Tell me ye covetous is it in the name of JESUS CHRIST that ye toil night and day to heap up dung Is it He that taught you those black arts and inhumane dexterities to spoil the Orphan and the Widow for the enriching of your selves Have you had the confidence to call upon the name of JESUS that He might teach you and guide your hands to work deceit and bless your violences Is it to advance His glory and give His name a good odour that you make your selves famous among the Vassals of Mammon not disdaining any part of his drudgery how distastful soever to GOD and man And you that are ambitious can you indeed perswade your selves that those vanities that take you up are so important unto JESUS CHRIST Or that it is in His Name you lose your time about them You also whom the flesh and its pleasures do drown in their ordures in conscience is it in the name of JESUS CHRIST you are employed Is it for His glory or according to His will I say as much of the revengeful and the drunken and of all those that serve any one of the other vices which JESUS CHRIST hath expresly condemned and forbidden No one of all these do's act in His name Dear Brethren let us renounce these things if we will be Christians Let us never make any enterprize never set upon any action but first consider whether it may be done in the name of the LORD JESUS that is whether it be such as we may with a good conscience implore His help to finish it and judge either proper to advance His glory and conform or at least not contrary to His will and interests Hereby we are obliged to banish out of our lives first all vitious actions of which none can be done in the name of JESUS CHRIST since they are all displeasing to Him And they that in designs of such nature have the impudence to ask assistance of Him as some there be whom superstition hath inspir'd this sottish conceit into that they may do evil for a good end these I say offend JESUS CHRIST excessively rendring Him guilty of their crimes as much as in them is and inviting Him to take part in their vices But this rule of the Apostle doth not only oblige us to eschew evil and abstain from sin It requireth also that what good we do be done for CHRIST's sake and in His name that in our alms and in our devotions and in all the acts of our piety and charity we seek nothing but His glory the fulfilling of His will and the advancement of His Kingdom and not the praise of men or the interest of our own affairs It 's a taking of His name in vain to do otherwise It 's a prophaning the actions of vertue by employing them in the service of flesh and blood them which of their own nature and by GOD's intention are not to be done but for His glory and for His Son's name sake In fine this maxim of the Apostle's embracing generally all the things a Christian doth both in word and work 't is evident that it ought to regulate those also which are in their own nature indifferent
at which you shall be examined will have no more complacency for you then for them That LORD whom you see over you is their Creatour and Redeemer as well as yours He hath put them under you but to govern them not to tyrannize over them to have care of them as his creatures and children not to tread them under foot as worms Remember He will treat you as ye shall have treated them You are his servants as they are yours or to say better they are your brethren and ye are not worthy to be so much as His Vassals You and they are one and the same flesh that came out of the earth and unto earth shall return but neither they nor you have any thing in common with GOD. He is in the Heavens and you crawl in the dirt He is the King of Glory and ye are but dust and ashes Yet such is His goodness that notwithstanding this infinite inequality He hath not disdained your nothingness He hath pardoned you your sins He hath washed you in the bloud of his Son He hath forgiven you all your debts He hath communicated to you His divine nature Respect His graces and have no less gentleness and goodness for your own flesh and bloud then this Soveraign LORD hath had for you who were His enemies With what face will you beg mercy of Him if ye be inexorable to your people How can you hope for the grace of your Master if you have none for your Servants I beseech you both have these holy thoughts night and day fore your eyes to the end you may faithfully discharge those mutual duties which the Apostle enjoyns you the one subjection and obedience the others justice and equity both of you living in such an holy correspondence as that the loyalty the respect the humility the submission and the diligence of servants may go in conjunction with the gentleness the gravity the liberality and benevolence of Masters If ye so do you will be happy the families where you live together in this manner will become the wonder of the earth and the honour of the Church The blessing of Heaven will fall continually on them and besides the contentment and repose which this kind of life will give you abundantly for the present it will also bring you hereafter into the possession of the heavenly inheritance But Dear Brethren it is not enough that those Masters and Servants to whom St. Paul particularly speaks do make their profit of his instructions We all have in them what to learn of whatever quality and condition we be For since he would have servants render so exact and so frank an obedience to their Masters according to the flesh judge ye what kind of obedience we owe to that Highest LORD whom we all have in Heaven The Master according to the flesh gave not his servant the being he hath and if he redeemed him he redeemed but his flesh and that at the price of a sum of money only Ours did make us and it 's by His liberality alone that we hold all the being life and motion that we have Nor hath He only created us He hath also redeemed the whole of us our soul and body flesh and spirit not with silver and gold which are corruptible things but with His own precious bloud having voluntarily sacrific'd His life to preserve us from death and give us an happy immortality Never Master had so much right to command His servants as He hath in reference to us Let us obey Him then in all things without reservation and consecrate this whole life of ours to His service the whole whereof we have once and again received from His grace Neither is it with this LORD as with Masters according to the flesh These oftentimes command things unjust or unhonest things contrary to our salvation which we cannot do without destroying our selves He commands us nothing but what is just what is honest and reasonable what is worthy both of Himself and of us Wherefore the most abject bond-servant owes his Master but a limited obedience whereas we owe ours such as is absolute and infinite His yoke is easie and His burthen light He demands no other thing of us but that we love Him and our brethren for His sake that we live honestly and holily that is be happy O ingrateful and execrable creatures that we are if we deny a Master to whom we owe so much so just and so reasonable so beneficial and so blessed an obedience Again judge ye Faithful if the bond-servant ought to obey his Master in singleness of heart with courage and affection as the Apostle says with what ardour promtitude and devotion should we serve ours who is not only allmighty and all-wise but also goodness love clemency and beneficence it self Then as for the bond-man though he ought to serve his Master at all times and in every place yet his Master sees him not always whereas we are ever under the eye of ours He hath a full view of us sees us within and without nor can we hide our selves in any place where He is not present We cannot speak a word nor form the least thought in the secret of our hearts but He 's a witness of it knows the whole assoon as our selves Now sure there is no slave so sottish and shameless but the Master's eye will keep in order and compel unto obedience It such a one be idle or exorbitant he is not so but in the other's absence Since then we have ours alway present what remaineth but that we be never idle that we employ all our time in His service bearing respect to His Divine eye that looketh on us and is over us both day and night Again even when the serving of a man is in question the Apostle would have the slave not serve to please the man meerly so great an integrity and probity doth he require in all our performances Judge then how much more holy and how much more pure from all interest that obedience should be which we render to the LORD JESUS GOD blessed for ever Undoubtedly they that serve Him to please men to gain their esteem and acquire a reputation for sanctity among them or to draw thence any other profit they I say beside their being ridiculous and vain do commit also an huge and an inexcusable sacriledge profaning the Name of GOD and the sacred acts of religion Matt. 6.2 and most unrighteously abusing them for worldly ends Such are those hypocrites that fast and pray and hear the word of GOD and celebrate His Sacraments and give alms to be seen and had in honour that in short serve not GOD but to please men They saith CHRIST have their wages They are paid they have nothing more to look for at GOD's hands For such vain and deceitful service they shall have no other reward but that vain and deceitful breath which they have coveted and sottishly preferred to the glory of
GOD. Let us eschew at once these peoples miscarriage and their misery and according to the Apostle's prudent and divine injunction whatever we do whether the action be addressed unto GOD or respect our neighbour do it all as unto GOD and not as unto man Let us seek for neither other spectator nor other remunerator than Him alone Be we content with his approbation and with the testimony of our own consciences whatever censure men do pass upon us being assured as St. Paul here adds that if we serve the LORD if it be Him we obey if it be to His will and glory that we consecrate and direct the course of our lives we shall infallibly receive from His bountiful hand the reward of the inheritance and on the contrary that they that do unjustly and despising His truth are injurious either to His Majesty or His creatures shall receive what they have unjustly done without respect of persons Looking for so great and dreadful a judgement at which the least of our actions whether they be good or evil shall be examined in presence of the assembly of the whole universe what manner of persons 2 Pet. 3.11 I beseech you ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness Let us search our hearts and make inspection into all the parts of our life let us cleanse our souls and bodies from all filthiness and impurity and timely judge our selves wounding and cutting off with the righteous sword of a lively and serious repentance all the evil we find in our selves and living henceforth justly soberly and religiously without scandal before men and with all good conscience in the sight of GOD that we may next week present our selves at His holy Table to our edification and comfort and appear at the last day before His sacred and dreadful tribunal without confusion to the glory of JESUS CHRIST who hath redeemed us and our own eternal salvation Amen THE FORTY SIXTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. IV. VER II III IV. Verse II. Persevere in Prayer watching in it with thanksgiving III. Praying together also for us that GOD do open us the door of the word to publish the mysterie of CHRIST for which also I am prisoner IV. That I may manifest it as I ought to speak DEAR Brethren Prayer is the Christian's sacrifice the holiest exercise of his devotion his consolation in troubles his stay in weaknesses the principal weapon he useth in combats his oracle in doubts and perplexities his safety in perils the sweetning of his bitternesses the balm of his wounds his help in adversity the support and ornament of his prosperity and in a word the key of the treasury of GOD which opens it to him and puts in his hand all the good things that are necessary for the one and the other life this of the earth and that of heaven Hence it is that the holy Apostles give it us in charge with so much affection and diligence in all those divine instructions of theirs which are come to our hands Not to seek further off for instances of it you see how St. Paul being upon the point to conclude this excellent Epistle to the Colossians after he had informed their faith and regulated their manners and explained their duty both in general towards all men and towards certain sorts of men in particular within the societies in which they live sets an exhortation to prayer at the head of some other documents which he addeth before he makes an end Persevere in prayer saith he watching therein with thanksgiving And in truth it 's with a great deal of reason that he reminds us of so important and so necessary a duty For since GOD is the Father of lights from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift how can we without His favour and benediction either acquire or conserve the faculties and habits of this divine life unto which the holy Apostle would form us together with the vertues that relate to it Since then prayer hath the promise of obtaining from His liberality whatsoever it shall ask of him in faith it 's upon good ground that the Apostle wills the Colossians to address themselves continually to GOD by prayer for the meet and faithful discharging of those duties he prescribed them After this he further adds two advertisements more the one of conversing wisely with those that are without and the other to season their speech the principal instrument of conversation with the salt of grace Whereupon he concludes this Epistle with the praises of Tychicus and Onesimus who were the bearers of it and with salutations he makes them on the behalf of some then with him adjoyning his own to the Colossians themselves and likewise to the faithful of Laodicea This is the summ of this last Chapter of his letter as you shall here more particularly by the will of GOD in the following actions At present we purpose His grace assisting to entertain you with what he saith of prayer in those three Verses we have read and to do it in order we will treat one after another of the two points that offer themselves in the same first of prayer in general Persevere in prayer watching therein with thanksgiving Secondly of their praying particularly and expresly for him which he requireth of them Praying together also for us c. Man being in some sort secretly conscious of his own weakness and knowing how little succour second causes can afford him for the conservation and the happiness of his life is in a manner naturally inclin'd to call unto his aid by prayer that veiled and invisible Deity whose Providence he scenteth in every thing though he perceiveth not its form All religions in the world do give clear and very express testimony to this truth there never having been any known but that had its prayers and letanies addressed to GOD and greatest idolaters and the deplorablest wicked men are wont to cry out when a danger surpriseth them O LORD help me O GOD deliver me lifting up their eyes at that time to Heaven as if nature in that case did its self compell them to do homage to that Majesty which they outrage or blaspheme through the rest of their lives But what Nature doth too too imperfectly teach us we learn plainly and fully from the Scripture where we have both express commands to call on GOD and promises of favourable audience and examples of all holy men under the one and the other Covenant whose orisons the Holy Spirit hath taken care to keep up for us in these sacred registers of the Church St. Paul presupposing therefore here that the Faithful he wrote to had this exercise of prayer familiar among them according to that common principle of nature and of Scripture does only regulate them in the manner of performing it advising them to persevere in it to watch in it and to accompany it with thanksgiving As for perseverance in prayer 't is not without reason that
he expresly gives it us in charge For though the duty be not only very just but even most necessary yet we are of our selves so cold and sluggish and so indisposed to the performance of it that we all need the heavenly voice of this Minister of GOD to excite us unto it Presuming that we have the things we need in our own power or shall find them in the sufficiency of nature and not considering how they all depend upon the hands of GOD we remit the assiduous invocating of him and make not use of prayer but on extraordinary occasions when humane succour faileth us as the manner is in tragedies where the Deity is not brought in but at some difficulties which no created power or prudence is able to clear On the other hand we are so proudly delicate and tender that if we are not heard as soon as we have spoken we flye off and are ready to say as that King of Israel once did Why should I wait on the LORD any longer 2 Kings 6.33 For the curing our selves of so pernicious an humour and that we may persevere in prayer according to the Apostle's advice let us consider in the first place the continual need we have of GOD's assistance For since it is in Him that we have being life and motion since it is He who sendeth poverty and maketh rich who sets up and puts down who dispenceth health and sickness who bringeth to the grave and reduceth thence who governs the hearts of men and the elements of nature Since it is He again who beginneth who polisheth and perfecteth all the work of grace and crowneth it with glory who effectually produceth in us both the will and the deed of his good pleasure it is evident that without the help of His holy and most happy hand we can never come to possess any good either in our own persons or in our families either in the State or in the Church nor be preserved and secured or freed and saved from any evil of any kind whatever You cannot refuse belief of this great truth without imputing falshood at once to the Scriptures of GOD and the depositions of Nature both which do harmoniously report and averr it to us on all hands Yet if thou credit it why do you not consider what it necessarily inferrs namely that having continual need of GOD's assistance you are by your own interest obliged to implore it continually And that as you cannot pass a day without His favourable succour so neither should you spend a day without calling on His Name Look I beseech you upon poor beggars with what earnestness with what indefatigable perseverance they spend whole daies nay their whole life a petitioning of us It 's a sense of their necessity that gives them this constancy and inspires this courage into them Dear Brethren we have infinitely more need of the succours of GOD than these poor people have of ours Why are not we at least as earnest as constant and assiduous in beseeching Him as they are in asking alms of us As for them our flintiness is such that for the most part they reap little or no fruit of their perseverance in praying of us whereas the LORD according to the riches of His infinite goodness and power never sends away ashamed such as persevere in prayer to Him He hath so promised He doth daily so perform and the Church's experience in all ages assures us of the truth of the word He hath given us in that behalf I confess He doth not alwaies presently give us what we crave But if we be constant if undismayed at His first denials we press Him with a vigorous and an ardent faith there 's nothing but perseverance will draw it from His bounty Gen. 32.25 26. Hos 12.4 in the end It was thus that Jacob obtained the blessing he desired He wrestled stoutly with GOD all night and had power over Him he wept and begged favour and constantly holding fast his LORD I will not let thee go said he to Him untill thou bless me The Canaanitish woman in the Gospel took the same course and was heard in like manner She bore our Saviour's first put-offs without dismay and those hard words It is not good to cast the childrens bread to dogs Matt. 15.26 astonish'd her not She receiv'd this great blow without giving over and her holy importunity came off victorious having drawn from our LORD's mouth that sweet and desirable answer O woman great is thy faith Be it unto thee as thou wilt Imitate this violence It offends not GOD. It appeaseth Him The LORD Himself commands it us expresly and teacheth us that we ought to pray alwaies and not faint by the parable of that poor widow whose importunity overcame the obdurateness of the unjust Judge and drew that from him in the end which neither fear of GOD nor respect of men could sway him to This Judge was wicked and cruel yet the perseverance of a woman conquered him How much rather shall ours bear away what we desire of GOD who is goodness and clemency its self As for that Judge it was his nature and the disposition of his heart that rendred him cruel and inexorable But if the LORD grant not our first requests 't is not that He means indeed to be sparing of His benefits towards us To say true He is more willing to give them than we are to receive them This in total is but a mysterious act of His wisdome and by such delays He would exercise our faith enflame our desires and make tryal of our constancy He hides himself that we might seek Him He retires that we might press after Him and holds back His blessing that we might pluck it from Him His favours are no boons that should be faintly desired We do not know the value of them if we do not esteem them worthy to be asked with instancy The favours we sue for at the Courts and Palaces of men are verily but terrene things things of little value and of a short and uncertain duration Yet what do we not do to obtain them We besiege their gates in the morning early we abide there till late at night we suffer their put-offs and disdains and oftentimes even their reproaches and the outrages of their domesticks They drive us from them they call us troublesome people they accuse our hardiness of impudence or insolency We swallow all these affronts and after all forbear not to come on again inventing if it be possible some new submission to soften them so great and pressing is our desire of those things which we petition them for Christians do ye not blush at having more passion for things of the earth then for things of Heaven Are you not ashamed to sollicite the justice or the favour of men with more earnestness then the grace of GOD To have more patience and perseverance in seeking to win the heart of a worm of the
Barnabas had wrote them in recommendation of him And thereunto the Apostle adjoyns his own counsel to them Acts 15.39 saying if he come unto you receive him Some conceive that he thus writes because of that ill understanding that sometime hapned between him and Barnabas on the occasion of Mark to shew now that there was no relique of it in his heart However that be 't is certain as we read in the Acts that Mark bewray'd a little weakness at the beginning Acts 13.13 quitting Paul and Barnabas in Pamphilia without any reason amid their conquests But afterward the Grace of GOD so mightily strengthened him and so eminently employed him in converting of Nations that beside the memory of it which remains in all the monuments of antiquity he hath also drawn from the pen of St. Paul two or three very honourable testimonies this here for one Phil. 24. and another like it in the Epistle to Philemon where he mentions him among his fellow-workers and the most advantageous of all in the second to Timothy 2 Tim. 4.11 Take Mark saith he and bring him with thee for he is profitable to me for the Ministry The third of those whom the Apostle mentions here is Jesus called Justus 'T is probable that his true name was Jesus and that Justus was but the name which the Latines and Greeks gave him calling him Justus instead of Jesus it being usual with them to alter foreign names in that manner when they pronounc'd them in their own dialects We have of this servant of GOD no other memorial at all For though some conceive that it 's the same Justus of whom speech is in the 18th Chap. of the Acts unto whose house St. Paul retir'd at Corinth when he saw the Jews resist his preaching yet this seems not possible because this man was by extraction a Gentile and uncircumcised though he had some knowledge and fear of GOD as appears by St. Luke's terming him a religious man or one that worshipped GOD a character he ordinarily gives to persons of this condition as to Cornelius the Centurion and divers others whereas that Justus who is in question here was indeed a Jew and circumcised as St. Paul sheweth adding immediately of him and the two other afore-named who are of the circumcision and he praiseth them all three in commune saying that they alone to wit of their Nation were his fellow-workers unto the kingdom of GOD and protesteth that they were a consolation to him A great and an illustrious testimonial given them that they laboured with him in preaching the Gospel for the advancement of the kingdom of GOD that is to say for the edifying of the Church which the Scripture ordinarily calls the kingdom of Heaven and in the same sense the kingdom of GOD. Now this is that that the Apostle says of these three servants of the LORD It remains for a conclusion that we intimate unto you briefly what edification you ought to draw from those particulars which we have noted in the Apostles present Text. And first by the pain the Colâ—ssians were in for St. Paul and by the care St. Paul takes for their consolation you may see the ardent and cordial affection which the flocks and Ministers of CHRIST should have for one another Make your profit of it ye the LORD's sheep and tenderly compassionate the labours and the sufferings of your Pastors Ye Pastors do likewise and prefer before all interests of your own the edification and consolation of those sheep whom the great Shepheard hath redeemed with his blood Then again the love which these five faithful men here mentioned did bear unto St. Paul they keeping ever neer him and cheerfully and constantly obeying his orders shews us with what fervour we should serve such as suffer for the Gospel and with what zeal we should inseparably adhere to the Apostles of JESUS CHRIST the Teachers and Founders of the Church For though their persons be no longer here below yet their doctrine is and will remain here to the end and in this respect they are still in their sacred writings sitting as it were on twelve thrones thence judging all the Israel of GOD. Moreover the Apostle's praising all the persons he here speaks of so liberally as he doth may inform us with what candor we should acknowledge the graces which GOD hath imparted to our brethren diffusing the sweet savour of their good name through the Church and honouring their zeal and their fidelity with our testimonials to their comfort and the edification of their neighbours Far from us be envy and malignity and pride passions of a base alloy and unworthy of a truly noble Christian disposition Let not the graces and dignity of Paul induce him to despise Onesimus I mean let not the advantages of such as are greatest cause them to disdain the least But consider we particularly the examples of each of those five faithful men and imitate them For it 's to this end that the holy Apostle hath proposed them and thought meet to consecrate the memory of them in his divine and immortal Epistles not that he might oblige us to dedicate festivals to them or render them religious worship or invocate them as our Mediators away with such a thought for all this appertaineth to GOD only The true honour we owe them is to serve GOD after their example and conform our lives to theirs and draw the pourtraict of their high and holy vertues on our dispositions and our actions Imitate we the fidelity of Tychicus the repentance and faith of Onesimus the courage and the patience of Aristarchus the laboriousness of Marcus and of Justus in the matters of the Kingdom of GOD. Let not meanness of birth or of condition let not the greatness of sins discourage any JESUS CHRIST rejecteth neither the poor nor the peccant that come to him with faith witness Onesimus who though a bondman and fugitive yet so effaced all this ignominy that he hath praise from the mouth of the Apostle and his name engraven here in the temple of GOD among the names of the most illustrious Servants of His. If you have followed the LORD constantly and evenly as Tychicus and Aristarchus did thank Him for the grace He hath shewed you and go on from good to better If it hath befaln you as it did Mark to slacken sometime in the work of your heavenly calling resume likewise as he did your former vigour and reduce your selves to that pass as it may be said of you that you are useful for the LORD's service In general Beloved Brethren let us all be as these holy and happy persons were fellow-workers with the great Apostle unto the Kingdom of GOD burning with him in an holy zeal to glorifie JESUS CHRIST living with him in all pureness and sanctity employing with him our tongues our hands and our pens for the converting of men and edifying of the Church and finally couragiously suffering with
an example of it in the Text which you even now heard For having said afore that the Colossians had heard of the hope which is laid up for us in the Heavens by the word of truth to wit the Gospel from thence he takes occasion to interpose in this verse something to its commendation representing to us the extention and efficacy of this Divine word of life The Gospel saith he which is come unto you as also it is into all the world and bringeth forth fruit as it doth also in you since the day that you heard and knew the Grace of God in truth In the two verses that follow he praiseth Epaphras who had by his Ministry converted the Colossians to the knowledge of the LORD giving him an excellent testimony of fidelity and goodness and mingling therewith some praises of the Colossians themselves As also saith he you have heard of Epaphras our dear fellow servant who is a faithful Minister of CHRIST for you who also hath declared unto us your Charity which you have in the Spirit This shall be if it please the LORD the matter of this action And to proceed upon it in order we will consider one after the other the two particulars that present themselves as you see in the Text of St. Paul to wit the praise of the Gospel in the former verse and that of Epaphras in the two next touching at also upon each what the Apostle intermixeth to the commendation of the Colossians As to the Gospel he toucheth at two points First its admirable progress and its great and sudden spread It is saith he come unto you as also into all the world and secondly its divine effectualness to convert men and change their manners and life And it bringeth forth fruit saith he as also it doth in you since the day that you heard and knew the Grace of GOD in truth He saith therefore first That the Gospel was come to the Colossians secondly That it is also come unto all the World About the first there is no difficulty For since there was a Church in the City of Colosse it is evident that the Gospel by which Christian Churches are founded and builded had been Preached to them Only we should observe in this event the marvels of the goodness of GOD towards the Colossians For they were a barbarous and an Idolatrous people very far off from the Countrey and the Religion of Israel a portion of Phrygia a Province infamous for its abominations from whence had issued the mysteries and infernal devotions of Cibele called by the Gentiles the mother of the GODs the most detestable of all Pagan Idols and in whose service were committed the most unclean and shamefullest horrours The Colossians as other inhabitants of Phrygia were plunged in this gulf of vileness when the LORD vouchsafed to visit them and make the light of His Gospel to arise upon them Whence appears that the knowledge He gives us of His word is a present from His meer grace and not the pay of our pretended merits For what had the Colossians in the condition they then were that might invite Him to communicate this rich treasure to them what had they on the contrary but might have diverted Him from it seeing all among them was full of a profound and inveterate Idolatrousness You see also the Apostle saith not that they were come to the Gospel but that the Gospel was come to them to shew us that it is GOD that cometh to us who preventeth us by His grace according to the determinate purpose of His good pleasure The sick do go or send to the Physician and sollicite the succour of his art Here quite contrary the supream Physitian of souls seeketh to the sick He comes to them in His benignity He sendeth them His Ministers and presenteth to them His remedies when they dream of nothing less Luk. 19.10 than of their malady and the cure necessary for them The Son of man came to seek and save that which was lost He dispatcheth His servants to Colosse and elsewhere to bear thither His salvation to people that thought not save of destroying themselves He makes Himself be found of them that sought Him not Isa 65.11 and saith unto a Nation that was not called by His Name Behold me behold me Let a man search as much as he pleaseth He shall never be able to find any reasonable cause of this dispensation of GOD communicating His Gospel at certain times and to certain places but His sole good pleasure And that we might the better note this truth He often directeth the light of His word to those that governed themselves worst in the state of nature and hideth it from them that seemed less defiled than others He imparteth His Gospel to the Colossians to the Ephesians to the Corinthians and such like the most lost men that were in all kind of superstitions and Vices He saith nothing to the Gymnosophists or the Brachmans or to divers others as well Barbarians as Greeks which were esteemed at that time the most innocent of all mankind as in effect there appeareth much more of justice and honesty in what is reported to us of their manners than in those of any other people Wherefore hath GOD taken this course Because if He had done otherwise if He had called only those in whose policy and life was seen some outward goodness to shine forth passing by those whose manners had nothing which was not damnable we should have believed without all doubt what some cannot yet forbear to say that it is the works of men that oblige GOD to call them and to impart His Gospel to them and that if in rigour they be not worthy of this favour they merit it at least in a seemliness of equity and in congruity as they speak of it in the Schools of Rome Therefore the LORD useth very often a clean contrary procedure to make us understand that those whom He calleth do not more than those he leaveth merit ought at all as in effect it is most true that all men in the corruption wherein they are born do nothing that is of value the most splendid of their pretended vertues in this estate being but a plaister and a deceitful dawbing which under a fair appearance hideth only deformity and filth and that if He vouchsafe to illuminate any with the light of his Gospel it is of the sole good pleasure of His grace He doth it and not at all for merit of theirs It was therefore a miracle of the Divine goodness that this saving Doctrine came to the Colossians who by their nature were so far from it and the Apostle remindeth them of it to animate them more and more in sincere gratitude towards the author of so great a benefit But that which he addeth is much more strange and incredible that the Gospel was come into all the world He testifieth it too elsewhere as here a little after where
he saith that the Gospel is preached to every creature Col. 1.23 that is under Heaven and at the tenth of the Epistle to the Romans where applying to the Ministers of the LORD JESUS what the Psalmist had sung of the Heavens Rom. 10.18 Their sound saith he is gone forth through all the earth and their words unto the ends of the World And elsewhere speaking of himself he saith That from Jerusalem Rom. 15.19 and round about it even to Illyricum he had made the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST to abound and after the time he wrote those words He sowed it besides in the Isle of Malta and at Rome Now if the other twelve Apostles and the seventy Disciples and the Evangelists did labour each according to his measure in proportion with St. Paul as it is not to be doubted but they did no one will have cause to be astonished that all they together should have by that time carryed the Gospel through the whole world We read likewise in the writings of the first Christians Justin Clement Tertullian and others that in their time that is about 130 and 160 years only after the LORD's death all was full of Christian Churches and that there was no Nation either among the Greeks or the Barbarians nay the very Scythians or Tartarians wherein CHRIST JESUS had not servants And though these testimonies cannot be rejected without extream impudence there being no probability that either St. Paul or those other Writers would have spoken of the thing in such sort if it had not been true yet entirely to disarm incredulity I will add that the very same appears by the Books of Pagans of that time that are remaining For Tacitus a Roman Historian a passionate enemy of Christianity Amel. l. 15. though otherwise a grave man and of great esteem among his Countrymen hath left in Writing that in the eleventh year of Nero that is only eight years after the date of this Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians a severe search having been made after it there was found a very great multitude of Christians at Rome This sufficeth to justifie what the Apostle says For since that Preaching was able to penetrate so far on this side athwart Provinces that made as it were the heart of the Roman Empire it might be much more easily spread towards the East in the Estates of the Parthians and in the Indies even whither St. Thomas went as appears by tracks of it that remain of it to this day in those Countries and towards the South in Egypt and Ethiopia where St. Matthew Preached as the ancients do report and towards the North whither passed some of the other Disciples This was well nigh the whole world then known of the Greeks and Romans and thus without doubt the Apostle understands it in this place For as to those great Countreys discovered in the West about one hundred and fifty years ago which they commonly call the West Indies or the New world it is evident the Ancients had no certain knowledge of them and it is very likely that they were not yet peopled in the Apostle's time the furtherst memory which the Nations there have preserved of things yerst done among them being but for four or five hundred years at most Be it concluded therefore that taking the World as is commonly understood for Countries inhabited and known at that time the Gospel was then already come into all the world The Apostle mentions it to the Colossians First to confirm them the more in the saith they had given to the Gospel I confess that its truth depends not upon the success of the Preaching it nor upon the multitude of them that believe it Though all the world should reject it though Heaven and Earth should persecute it the faith of a Christian ought to abide alwayes firm and unshaken being founded as it is upon the word of GOD and not upon the consent of men as on the contrary though the whole universe should maintain errour we should not be for this either obliged to follow errour or excusable for having followed it this order of GOD subsisting for ever that we must not follow a multitude to do evil But thoug it be thus yet it is a great consolation to a faithful soul to see the truth spread abroad And since the Divine Vertue of the LORD is so much the more powerfully declared by how much the more men it converteth unto his Christ it is evident that this extension of the Gospel helpeth and confirmeth our Faith in as much as it furnisheth us with an excellent testimony of the power of GOD and of the efficacy of His word But I add also that the success here touched by the Apostle contains a manifest argument of the Divinity of the Gospel and that in two respects For first if you consider the thing in its self it is so great and marvelous as that it sheweth sufficiently that this Doctrine is not only true but even Divine and Celestial When St. Paul wrote this Letter it was not full thirty years that JESUS CHRIST had suffered death in Judea and yet the Gospel as he saith was already come into all the world How could it have made so much way in so little time penetrated so many obstacles flown into so many places infinitely distant if it had not been both of a Celestial Original and carryed by a divine force Certainly as the extension of the light of the Sun who inlightens the whole Hemisphere in an instant and the rapidness of its motion who visits all the Climats of the universe in four and twenty hours doth evidently shew us that it is a work of GOD and of a nature altogether different from that of Earthly and Elementary things In like manner this so swift and suddain course of the Evangelique Doctrine that fill'd the world in so little time pierced through and dissipated the darkness and made it self be seen so quickly from one end of the Heavens to the other invincibly proves that it is a divine thing and no humane production Look on all the disciplines that ever had sway in the World You shall not find any of them that was establisht in this sort and made such a progress in so small a time The religions of the Pagans lived only in the Countries where they were born and if sometimes they stretched further it was rather the curiosity of strangers that brought them from the place of their birth than their own design or vigour all those so famous sects of the Philosophy of the Greeks did abide each of them in the soil that bare them And the Doctrine which the Popes of Rome have established in their Communion came not to the estate wherein we see it but by a long succession of time one age gaining one point and another adding a second till after many ages it took in fine the consistence and form it hath at this day and wherein