it Such as are not vertuous but after this manner are not so indeed They are subtil and dextrous but not good men And though the external lustre of these goodly works they do be apt to deceive men yet it will not be able to satisfie their own conscience if they have any and much less to content the eyes of GOD who judgeth of things by their in-side and their verity not by their apparence For that any act of beneficence of clemency of meeknesse and humanity may be holy and acceptable unto GOD 't is requisite it should proceed from a sincere love towards our neighbours If it come from any other principle it is of no value in reality how plausible and pompous soever it be in shew It 's a false and spurious production a fruit sair without but worm-eaten and corrupt within Beside that the thing speaks of its self St. Paul proclaims it in the thirteenth Chapter of the first to the Corinthians If I distribute all my goods saith he to feed the poor and have not charity it profits me nothing Therefore Brethren the same Apostle having here afore charged us to bear with one another to pardon one another and to perform all other acts of kindness mercy meeknesse and patience doth now add very pertinently for the purging of our hearts and works from all the venome of hypocrisie that together with these vertues which he hath exhorted us unto we have above all charity as that which is the soul of every true vertue and without which the fairest and most esteemed actions are but as an ancient Doctor said well glittering sins And beside all this saith the Apostle put on charity which is the bond of perfection And let the peace of GOD hold the chief place in your hearts unto which ye are called in one body and be ye thankful You plainly see that he recommends unto us three Christian vertues Charity the Peace of GOD and Thankfulness Now as for the last of these he only names it without saying ought else of it whereas in referrence to the other two he briefly sets before us some considerations that may oblige us to take up the studious pursuance of them For he saith of charity that it is the bond of Perfection and of the Peace of GOD that we are thereunto called in one body In compliance then with the order of our Text we will treat of three heads in this action if GOD please first of Charity secondly of the Peace of GOD and then for a conclusion in some brief touches of gratitude or thankfulness about which the Apostle speaks but a word and no more There is no person in the Church but knows that Charity is that pure and sincere and vertuous love which each of us doth owe to other men our neighbours upon the account of that communion of nature we have with them as also principally because of the image of GOD after which they all are created according to the expresse command that He hath given us to love them as our selves I grant it hath divers degrees and doth embrace men with some inequality these more strictly and those less according to the differences of their merit and worth as also of the union we have with them either in nature or in the state or in grace Nevertheless it extends its self unto all and doth not account any one a stranger but obligeth and serveth them freely as far as its ability permits and when occasion is offered For our LORD and Saviour teacheth us in the parable of that poor man whom the Samaritan assisted Luke 12.36 finding him in that pitiful estate the theeves had left him on the way from Jericho to Jerusalem that every man that needeth our help is our neighbour So that GOD and right reason obliging us to love whom ever that is our neighbour it 's out of all doubt that there is no man but we ought to love But as Charity hath a much greater extent than the friendship of the world so is its flame much more pure and holy For to say true men of the world love none but themselves it being evident that if they affect any it is not so much to do them good as to draw profit or pleasure from them But Charity doth sincerely affect its neighbour desiring to him and procuring him that good which is necessary to make him happy And the difference of these two affections comes from their causes For Charity issueth from the love of GOD whereas worldly friendship proceeds from that vicious and inordinate love which every one beareth to himself so as Charity loving our neighbour for GOD's sake seeks nothing but GOD's glory and the welfare of the person it loveth whereas a man of the world not loving but for his own sake does accordingly seek nothing but his own interests And though this doth plainly appear in the whole conduct of the one and the other of these loves yet it may be particularly observed in this one event namely that that affliction and misery which extinguisheth worldly amity doth make the affections of charity to flame more than ever an evident sign that the one is neither bred nor fed but by the fruit it gathers from the thing it loves whereas the other on the contrary being kindled by that ray of the Divine image which it sees ingraven on the nature of its neighbour is kept alwaies in and the more it sees him need its compassions and good offices the more it increaseth and redoubleth its endeavours It 's this holy and Christian Charity which the Apostle would have us put on And besides all this saith he put on Charity These words as they lye in the original may be taken two manner of waies both of them apt and good and such as have their authors Some interpret them and above or over all these things Others a little otherwise and for all these things Both the one and the others do accord that all those things which the Apostle intends are the same he had spoken of immediately before to wit those bowels of mercy that kindness that humility meekness and patience which in the precedent verses he commands us to put on Now then after the sense of the former of those interpreters he means that to this rich garment we should add charity putting it uppermost as a precious and an useful robe to cover and keep all the rest Not that we must put on charity last in regard of time after all those other vertues for on the contrary it ought to be first formed in us as the parent of whom the most part of the rest are to be brought forth But the Apostle makes use of this comparison upon the account of other resemblances that these things have with one another and the authors of this exposition do note three of that kind One that as the robe we put over our clothes is greater and larger than our other clothing so
crave that you may be filled with the knowledg of the Will of CHRIST in all wisdom and spiritual understanding To Prayer he added Action couragiously attacquing Error on all occasions refuting Seducers and discovering the vanity of their Doctrine and the malignity of their design not only by word of mouth but also by writing as we see by those divine Epistles of his which remain with us and in which the evidences of his great earnestness against these false Apostles do appear here and there in many places And as he laid on stoutly upon enemies so did he smartly take up the faithful reproving them admonishing and encouraging them to necessary firmness and constancy He marched with so high a generosity that he spared not S. Peter himself who having slipt through weakness and complacency into actions which seem'd to favour error Paul boldly undertakes him and sheweth him his fault with much liberty as himself gives us an account elsewhere In short Gal. 2. he omitted none of the duties of a valiant and vigilant Captain either against the foe or towards his friends and fellow-soldiers as is easie to be seen by his writings Yet his combat stay'd not here He often came to blows cheerfully suffering for this cause all the persecutions which the rage of the Jews and the malice of Seducers did contrive and form against him And to say the truth the very chain he was loaden with and the prison he was in when he wrote this Epistle did make up a part of this Combat of his it being clear by the History of the Acts that nothing had more inflamed the hatred of the Jews against him who cast him into this affliction than the zeal he shewed every where against the corruptions of such people as would retain the Ceremonies of the Jewish Law and hence it is that he told the Colossians afore Col. 1.24 he suffered for them because in effect and at the bottom it was for maintaining their liberty and the liberty of other Gentiles converted to the Gospel and for the keeping of their faith pure from all corruptive leaven that he fell into this tedious sufferance Such was Paul's combat for these faithful people Dear Brethren admire the zeal and the charity of this sanctified soul He was in the Prisons of Nero he stood as we may say upon the Scaffold and had his head on the block being indicted for a criminal matter which concerned his life And even in this estate his heart is in pain for the Churches of Colosse and Laodicea and for those beside that had never beheld him Their danger troubled him more than his own Neither prison nor death was able to extinguish or diminish his affection or to make him lay aside the least of his cares Having so great a Combat against his own person upon his hands he leaves it and on so pressing an occasion travelleth and combateth for others Certainly there cannot any thing be imagin'd more elevated or more ardent than this love We may truly affirm of it what is said in the Song of Solomon His love is strong as death and his jealousie is hard as the grave it's burnings are burnings of fire and a flame of GOD Many waters could not quench it nor could flouds drown it But observe again the prudence and apt procedure of this holy man in that he representeth these things to these faithful people for so good an end For being to entertain them with important matters and to decry errors which seduction did paint over with the deceitful colours of Philosophy and Eloquence that he might dispose their hearts to give him due audience and gain his remonstrances a necessary credit and authority he sets before them at the entrance the cares he had for their Salvation the combats he sustained for them and all the effects of that sacred amity he had towards them As a Captain who to keep firm his Soldiers in their duty represents to them his watchings and his pains-taking and his cares for their preservation and in sum all the marks of his affection to them or rather as a tender mother who to withdraw her dear children from giving ear to debauches sheweth them her fears her sollicitudes and her alarms the yearning of her bowels and all that she doth or suffereth for them Such is the Apostles holy artifice in the present business and it is grounded upon a maxime we all know namely that we much more believe those that love us and are affectionate for our welfare than those to whom we are indifferent He declareth to them his pains that they may take in good part his remonstrances and discovereth to them his passion that they may receive his counsels His aim is not to draw glory from it or to enhanse his esteem among them such a childish vanity had no place in the soul of this great man but indeed to render his instructions the more effectual to the Colossians thereby And the Combats which he for the same end tells them of should serve in like manner for examples unto us Let Ministers of the Gospel learn by them what love they owe their flocks what cares and combats their Office obligeth them to Let nothing in the world be dearer or more precious to them than the Salvation of the Souls committed to their charge let them take part in their joys and in their griefs let them feelingly resent their wounds apprehend their dangers labour incessantly for their edification To it let them consecrate the thoughts of their mind and the words of their mouth and the work of their pen and the actions of their life yea their blood and life it self if there be need saying with clear conscience as the Apostle in another place doth 2 Cor. 12.15 As for me I will willingly spend and be spent for your souls and be glad to serve for an aspersion upon the sacrifice and service of your faith Let this care and these thoughts fill their hearts day and night let them make account that there is neither affair nor occasion nor peril that dispenseth with them for the same no not death it self in the very gates whereof they ought to mind still their flock and combat for them by their prayers and their devout wishes Such is the faithful the love and the care we owe you We confess that without such watching and striving for your Salvation we cannot avoid the censure and chastisements of the supream Pastor Judg if it be not reasonable that you have affection and respect for those whom the love of your Salvation engageth to so many cares and labours and if it be not just that you receive their instructions with reverence and hearken to the product of their studies with attention that you comply with the zeal they have for your edification and attribute much to their counsels and suffer their liberty and impute to their affection the sharpness of their remonstrances when grief and fear draw
I am with you rejoycing and seeing your order and the firmness of your faith which you have in CHRIST This is the reason why he advertiseth them to take heed of the wiles of seducers and why he so carefully puts into their hands the means to preserve themselves For some might have thought it strange that being so far from them and in all likelihood ignorant of the state wherein they were he should yet give them such an advertisement He preventeth this surmise and answers that though at Rome he were nevertheless he minded what was a doing at Coloss the affection which he borâ— them obliging him to interess himself in all their concernments Wonder not saith he that I bespeak you in this manner and send you from so far off preservatives against seduction For though so many Seas and Hills do sever my body from you yet my spirit is with you taking part in all that doth betide you rejoycing in the prosperous estate of your piety but likewise fearing the attempts of those enemies which I see round about you ready to sow the tares of Schism and Error upon any the least overture they find for it Some referr his saying that he wasi n spirit with the Colossians to an extraordinary and miraculous operation of the Holy Ghost who replenishing his soul with light made him thereby see things that passed at the greatest distance as clearly as if he had been present after the same manner that GOD had afore-time shewed Elisha what his servant Gehazi did with Naaman a passage which accordingly the Prophet expresseth almost in the same manner 2 Kings 5.26 Went not my heart with thee saith he to Gehazi when the man turned again from his Chariot to meet thee I confess surely that GOD could easily have made known to Paul at Rome in the Prisons of Nero where he was all that pass'd in the Church of Coloss with as much yea more clearness than if he had been present there and have revealed also to him the whole state of other Churches further distant from Italy as he made Ezekiel while living in captivity at Babylon to see the most secret actions of the Jews in the City and the Temple of Jerusalem But because it is dangerous to argue from what GOD can do to what he doth and under colour of some sleight probabilities to resolve upon things which his word doth not at all affirm Moreover since we must not multiply Miracles without necessity I account it best and safest without having receourse to this extraordinary kind of presence to interpret these words of the Apostle simply as others do of a presence in respect of care and affection For nothing is more common in all Languages than to say that our mind is in such places and with such persons as we think upon and have affection to Whence comes the vulgar saying that the soul is where it loves because there it ordinarily keeps its desires its love and its cogitations And it is thus also that we must take what the Apostle saith to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 5. â— that though absent in body he was present with them in spirit He means simply that his bonds did not detain his spirit or shut it up in the Prisons of Rome nor hinder him from minding them every hour and having his affections and thoughts continually among them figuring to himself the estate which they were in in as lively a manner as if he had had them before his bodily eyes and drawing from this lively conception the same movings of joy contentment and fear as the sight of them would have wrought within him So as there need be no wonder if having them so deeply engraven on his heart and still present to the eyes of his mind he become pained for them and at such distance prescribe them necessary precautions and preservatives against the pleasant but pernicious poysons of error And observe I beseech you this holy man's prudent and apt procedure For to justifie that care which he took of them he doth not urge the danger they were in their weakness or the bad inclinations which some of them had This discourse would have been offensive as shewing a distrust of their piety but on the contrary he here tells them of the prosperity of their spiritual estate the beauty of their order and the constancy of their faith Rejoycing saith he and seeing your order and the firmness of your faith Do not imagine saith he that I have an ill opinion of your piety because I do so earnestly advise you to stand fast I am very well satisfied concerning it and do find you in so good a posture that I have much consolation at it this matter being so pleasing to me that it fills my heart with joy notwithstanding the sad estate that I am in But from the same root whence springs my joy my ardent desire to see you go on from good to better doth also arise and with it the sollicitude and care I take to exhort it because it would be an extream regret and displeasure to see Error waste or wound so fair and flourishing a Church ever so little See how by praising them he doth oblige them to regard his advertisements and by the very consideration of their having so well begun doth more and more engage them to holy persevering to the end Thus he also treated the Philippians My beloved brethren said he to them and much desired Phil. 4.1 my joy and my crown so stand fast in the LORD my dearly beloved You perceive of your selves without my indication that when he says rejoycing and seeing your order the meaning is rejoycing to see or for that I see your order For in Scripture-language and even in our vulgar speech the particle and is often used in this sense and signifies because that or forasmuch as He praiseth and extolleth two things in these faithful persons wherein the happiness and the perfection of a Church doth consist to wit Order and a firm and constant Faith By the order of these Colossians he meaneth the good disposition of all the parts of their Church the vigilancy of the Pastors the submission and obedience of the Flock their joint-regard of Discipline each keeping themselves within the bounds of their vocation and both together living in concord and good intelligence honestly and without scandal For that order comprehendeth also purity and sanctity of behaviour the Apostle evidently sheweth in another place where 2 Thess 3.6 to signifie those that lead a scandalous life he saith that they walk disorderly He praiseth also the firmness of their faith in JESUS CHRIST signifying thereby both that full perswasion they had of the truth and divinity of his Gospel and their constancy to hold it fast notwithstanding the assaults and tentations of the Enemy It 's this Faith dear Brethren and this Order of the Colossians that was the matter of the Apostle's joy and the occasion
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
mystically and not literally for the internal corruption of our nature and as he express'd it afore for the body of the sins of the flesh not simply for the external condition and mark of Paganism Ye were dead in the uncircumcision of your flesh that is in the corruption of your flesh precisely in the same sense that Moses meant when he commanded the Israelites to circumcise the foreskin of their heart that is to cut off the vices and corruption of their hearts This mystical uncircumcision of the flesh is nothing else but the depravedness of our nature the vices and perverse habitudes and qualities which have seiz'd on all its faculties the blindness error and folly of the understanding the disorder of the will and its adherence unto vanity and false good things the rebelliousness of the appetites and lusts 〈◊〉 â—â—inted with gall and bitterest poyson This is properly the princip 〈…〉 wherewith we all were struck before the vocation of GOD. This is the cursed 〈◊〉 from which it springs up in us In the stirrings and motions of this hateful source which boils incessantly in us and casts up filth continually doth this spiritual death consist And I confess in this respect there is a difference between the condition of the dead commonly so called and the condition of these spiritually dead whom the Apostle speaks of For the former as they do no good so neither do they any evil Their faculties are equally disabled to the one and the other Whereas these spiritually dead men have lost sense and motion only in reference to that which is good They have both quick enough but it is only in reference to evil They understand they love they desire but altogether oppositely to good their thoughts and affections being full of error extravagancy and malignity As for true good they neither comprehend it nor discern it nor love it any more than 〈◊〉 they had neither understanding nor will at all Whence it follows that whereas the deadness the insensibility and unmovableness of other dead is an innocent misery deserving our pity and not our hate these mens on the contrary is an evil infinitely culpable and doth merit not compassion but abhorrence and execration from every reasonable creature For that they neither do nor can love GOD doth not proceed from their being destitute of natural faculties of understanding and loving but from a strong and obstinate rebelliousness of those faculties and from that invincible passion which carrieth them to evil John 5.44 as our Saviour shews us when he saith unto the Jews How can you believe seeing that you seek honour one of another and seek not the honour which comes of GOD alone An evident sign that these wretched people's impotency to believe did come from nothing but their impiety their stiff and inflexible aversion from the glory of GOD and that ardent and invincible affection they had for vanity and their own glory See then beloved Brethren what the condition of all men is before the LORD doth effectually call them unto the grace of his Son Where now are they that pretend they have the power of a free determination and a will equally capable of good and evil that do hereupon contest they can either convert them themselves unto GOD as said the Pelagians of old or at least prepare themselves for conversion and dispose themselves for grace as the greater part of the Doctors of Rome and with them some others also do maintain at this day The Apostle blasteth all this pride in one word when he saith that we were dead in our sins and in the uncircumcision of our flesh If a dead man be able to make himself alive or to prepare himself for the reception of life by any actions that come from him I will yeeld that the error of these men is not incompatible with the Doctrine of S. Paul But since common sense assureth us that the dead are depriv'd not of the actions alone but also of the power of life and that there is nothing but a supernatural action of GOD that is able to restore them to the society of the living so as they can contribute nothing thereto themselves we must needs either charge a falshâ—od upon the Apostle who saith that before Grace we are dead in our sins or confess in consequence of his Doctrine that men neither have nor can have of themselves any action or disposition unto spiritual life and that the power of the hand of GOD working supernaturally in them by his grace is the only strength that raiseth them up out of this miserable state If their will be free it is free to evil only which it embraceth and followeth most freely I confess that is most voluntarily and without any constraint taking all its delight therein If their understanding do act it is for error which it doth conceive and most obstinately embrace But as for the life of GOD they have not liberty or light for it any more John 6.44 and 8.36 than if they had neither will nor understanding at all according to that which our Saviour hath taught us saying No man can come to me except the Father who hath sent me draw him and again If the Son make you free you shall be free indeed Without this a man can have neither life nor liberty The Apostle clearly sheweth it when having represented the death wherein we were he adds in the second part of our Text that God hath quickned us together with CHRIST having freely pardoned us all our offences For there is no doubt but we must refer this action unto GOD of whom he just before was saying that He raised JESVS CHRIST from the dead It is therefore the same GOD who raised up the chief Shepherd from the dead that doth also make alive his faithful flock bringing them our of that spiritual and eternal death into which we are naturally sunk and putting them into a celestial and immortal life As there is none but He that could inspire and quicken that dust of which He formed us at first so there is again none but He that can expel out of our flesh that death which hath seized on it and restore that life which sin hath extinguish'd in us Both the one and the other vivification is the work of His hand alone Yet to say as truth is it is needful for Him to put forth more might in the second of them than He did in the first For if that handful of earth of which He created Adam had no disposition at all to that form and life which He put in it yet at least it had no repugnancy thereto whereas besides that He now findeth in us no disposition to an heavenly life He meets with over and above resistance and contrariety a spirit of rebellion aâ—â—mating the whole mass of our flesh which He must necessarily cast out that celestial life may be infused Now as that Death in which we lay doth comprehend
corrupted by these shameless sayings of the world But why do we call our selves Christians if we preferr the sentiments of the world or of our own flesh before the judgements of GOD St. Paul beside what he saith of it here protests aloud else-where having spoken of adultery Gal. 5.21 fornication and uncleannesse that they that commit such things 1 Cor. 6.10 shall not inherit the kingdom of GOD And again more formally elsewhere Deceive not your selves saith he neither fornicators nor adulterers nor the effeminate shall inherit the kingdom of GOD. Renounce either St. Paul or this error of the world If you persist in it the Apostle cryeth to you that you deceive your selves that is to say instead of Heaven which you in vain hope for while you continue in this evil way you shall in the end have hell for your portion in the communion of devils whose uncleannesse you love more than the purity of JESUS CHRIST and of His Saints Neither may you plead to us the furiousness of this passion GOD hath provided for it giving you an honest and a lawful remedy of it namely Marriage Why do ye not use it But the love of libertinizing and the fear of an imaginary yoke and an ambitious humour with-hold most men from thinking on it who would willingly say what the Doctors of Rome have not been asham'd to write concerning their Priests even that marriage is a greater sin for them than fornication whereby they sufficiently declare what opinion they have of this filth since they preferr it before a thing which they rank among the Sacraments But the Epicurians among Pagans and Monks among Christians have cried down marriage as much as they could through a mervaillous artifice of the enemy of our salvation who rightly judged that by this pernicious doctrine he should involve a multitude of people in the vilinies of luxury and consequently in damnation But if this vice be pernicious the other which St. Paul condemneth here is no less so And his not being able to name it without giving it the title of idolatry doth evidently shew you what indeed it is Ye covetous let this thunderbolt break the charms of your illusion Judge what a vice yours is since the Apostle calleth it idolatry and thereupon conceiving a just horrour at it renounce it for ever and all those low thoughts in which it busieth you to become henceforth liberal charitable beneficent communicative rich in good works Instead of these perishing goods which are exposed to the hands of men and the injuries of nature labour to treasure up a foundation for the time to come and to get together on high in the Heavens those true and immortal riches which JESUS CHRIST the Father of Eternity doth there keep for us and will one day give us to enjoy the same for ever in supreme glory with Himself and all His Saints So be it THE THIRTY FIFTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER VI VII Verse VI. For which things the wrath of GOD cometh upon the children of rebellion VII In which you also walked other-while when ye lived in them DEAR Brethren If men had as great a measure of understanding and generosity as vertue hath of beauty and attractiveness there would need no more to induce them to love it and embrace it but a representing to them the image of it This admirable object would quickly ravish their hearts and in an instant kindle in them a sweet and an everlasting flame of love which would govern all the motions and sentiments of their lives and consuming in a short time the vices and the foolish or unjust passions of their nature fill their deportment with piety honesty and charity One of those ancient sages of the world whom they call Philosophers did rightly acknowledge this truth notwithstanding the darknesse of his Paganism and said that if we could see vertue naked that is as it is in its self it would inflame our souls with a marvellous love to it For indeed what is there fairer and more amiable than virtue the true and lively image of GOD the supreme beauty of all beauties the resemblance of Angels the fairest of all creatures the only jewel of reasonable nature the light of our souls the ornament of our bodies the advantage of our being above that of animals the end and utmost perfection of the world it's just and legitimate governesse this vast universe having not been made and formed but that she might happily possesse it governing and keeping it under her holy and divine laws She sets all our affections in their true position bowing them under the Creator and raising them above the creature She reduceth all the faculties of our nature to their just symmetrie subjecting our passions to the will and our will to reason Resting content with the love of GOD and the hope of His glory she coveteth no unjust thing and doth no person wrong no not in desire and thought but loveth and obligeth all men as much as she can and sheds abroad continually upon them the sweet and innocent rayes of her excellent light remaining alwaies holy and just and honest without alwaies calm and peaceable and happy within Who could look upon a thing so beautiful without loving it accordingly you may observe that where there does appear at any heigth for instance upon the throne of a nation some image of it though not fully to the lire nor compleat and every way entire but only grosly drawn and in many respects imperfect yet it fails not to attract the eyes and hearts of the world forthwith It proves the love and joy of the present generation and the admiration of all posterity Men bless it heaven and earth delight in it and the age that produced it is glorious by it one single example of this nature being sufficient to adorn a whole countrey and render the time wherein it flourished for ever illustrious What then would our ravishments be if we beheld the true and accomplished effigies of it in all its lively colours without defect and without imperfection It 's true GOD hath pourtray'd it indeed to the life in the tables of His Scriptures But the eyes of our souls are so bad that we never comprehend it but very weakly and again our fordidnesse and wretchlesnesse is so extreme that commonly we do not love things according to their inherent beauty and honesty but according to the profit they afford us and do likewise hate things not so much for their deformity and natural odiousnesse as for the hurt that they may do us This ignorance and this mercenary humour which is common to all men is a cause that our Saviour contemeth not Himself with proposing to us the beauty of holynesse and the deformity and disorder of sin which is the due manner of dealing with reasonable creatures but accommodating Himself to our infirmity he incessantly sets before our eyes the good and the evil that will redound unto
faithful it mingleth and consociates them changeth them into one body and one spirit gives them the same will and the same affections Now surther it is to form and conserve this holy union among us that the Apostle does recommend to us the peace of GOD in the second part of this Text. Let the peace of GOD saith he hold the first place in your hearts to the which you are called in one body For this peace of GOD is not that which we have with GOD by faith in JESUS CHRIST His Son when as being appeased by the satisfaction of His Crosse He looks upon us in Him with a propitions and favourable eye as a Father and not as a Judge not imputing our sins to us which may be termed Peace of conscience But it is the peace we ought to have with one another all of us living amiably together as children of one and the same Father and heirs of one and the same grace and glory It 's the daughter of Charity and a fruit of that holy and Christian love which binds us perfectly together The Apostle calls it the peace of GOD first because He loves it above all things and upon this account is often stil'd in the Scriptures the GOD of peace hating nothing in the world more than trouble and discord and contentions and wars Secondly because He commands it us every where in His word And lastly because He is the Author of it who gives it and inspires it by His Spirit into all those that are truly His children And the Apostle hath expresly given it this title in this place for the more effectual recommending of it to us and that He might induce us to receive it with the greater respect as a thing of GOD's holy sacred and divine which we cannot violate without offending grievously that Soveraign Majesty to whom it doth belong 〈◊〉 many waies He willeth that this Peace of GOD do hold the chief place in our hearts The term he makes use of in the original is admirably expressive and elegant for it properly signifies to have the super-intendance of a thing to be the judge and arbiter of it to govern and regulate it and give it law That is the Apostle means that this Divine peace be the Queen of our hearts the mistresse and governesse of all your motions that that keeps them in due respect and with-holds them from ever attempting ought that tendeth to violate or disturb it And if the resenting of an offence for instance or an opinion of our own worth or any other such consideration do begin to kindle wrath or hatred or animosity against our brethren or excite some other passion of like nature in our hearts that this Peace do forthwith advance and stay the commotion and agitation of our minds calming the storm and speedily repelling all these sentiments of the flesh as so many incendiaries or evil spirits without giving them entrance or audience That it do enjoyn us and inspire into us humility and patience when we have been offended regret and the making of satisfaction when we have offended any other and cause us to seek carefully after all that it shall judge necessary to maintain amity and good intelligence among us as kind words and obliging deeds banishing both from our mouths and from our manners all that 's apt to cause or keep up our dividing from our neighbours The advertising of us that this is the peace of GOD were enough to perswade us to give it such place in our hearts But that the Apostle might overcome all possible obstinacy he here further represents unto us two considerations besides which oblige us to give it this super-intendency over our souls The one is that we are thereunto called and the other that we are one body For the first you know that our LORD and Master JESUS CHRIST doth every where call us to this Peace of GOD and that He hath given us precepts for it in His Gospel and examples of it in His life For what was there ever in the world more meek and peaceable than this Divine Lamb He contended not Mat. 12.19 nor cryed and His voice was not heard in the streets as the Prophets fore-told of Him He was gentle and lowly in heart He never repulsed any and received sinners with open arms how bad and abominable soever they had been He invited His greatest enemies unto His salvation and offered His grace to the most obstinate and bore their contradictions without answering again and their reproaches with silence and their rage without exasperation and did weep bitterly for that Jerusalem that rebellious City would not know the things of her peace Such is the pattern He gave us commanding us likewise expresly to be sweet Mark 9.50 and simple as doves without gall and without bitternesse and to be in peace among our selves And His Apostles repeat this lesson to us in divers places Rom. 12.8 as St. Paul here and other-where again If it be possible as much as in you lyeth have peace with all men And it 's for this that JESVS CHRIST came into the world even to pacifie Heaven and Earth Jews and Gentiles Isa 2.4 11.6 7 8. to extinguish enmities and wars and change swords into plow-shares and spears into pruning-books to take away the poison of asps and the cruelty of wolves and the fierceness of lions and transform bears and the savagest beasts into lambs Isa 66.12 and make them all live and dwell peaceably and amicably together finally to make peace overflow as a river as the ancient oracles had magnifically foretold Isa 9.5 by reason whereof He is also expresly stiled the Prince of Peace And you know it was the legacy He bequeathed us when He was preparing to dye for us Joh. 14.2 Peace I leave with you said He my peace I give unto you not to speak of the blessing and the dignity He promiseth those that shall love the same Blessed saith He are the Peace-makers Matt. 5.9 for they shall be called children of GOD. After all this who can doubt but He calleth all His unto peace as the Apostle here affirms Since He forms them to it by His voice by His lise by His promises and by the whole design of His Mediatorial Office But besides the command and order He hath given the very estate and condition He hath by His vocation put us in doth manifestly oblige us thereunto and this the Apostle represents unto us in the second place when having told us that we are called unto peace he adds in one body or to express the full and whole force of the Greek words in one only body It 's a doctrine universally received and most expresly asserted in divers places of Scripture that the whole Church doth make up but one only mystical body of which JESUS CHRIST is the head and the faithful are the members being animated under Him with one and the same
of their sex Moreover the interest of their Religion requires this performance at their hands though law and reason had not impos'd subjection on them to the end it might appear by their obedience that JESUS CHRIST doth not disturb the just order of humane societies but on the contrary form both men and women to all kind of righteousness and honesty much more exactly and effectually than other Religions do Lastly the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST having in divers places taken Marriage for a symbole of the union which is between Him and His Church he hath by that usage authorized and confirmed the duties of both the two Married parties and particularly the subjection of the wife since she is the image of the Church which ought to be subject unto CHRIST a matter which the Apostle hath elsewhere excellently made use of in this subject Eph. 5 23.24 The Husband saith he is the bead of the Wife even as CHRIST is the head of the Church Therefore as the Church is subject unto CHRIST so let wives be to their own husbands in all things Thus you see with how much truth and wisdom the Apostle here alledgeth unto Christian women that it is meet in the LORD that is in JESUS CHRIST they should be subject to their husbands it being clear by all we have been saying that all the considerations of the discipline of this same LORD and of the communion they have with Him do so strictly oblige them to this duty that if they fail of performance beside the fault and the disorder which they commit against the Law and institution of GOD and nature they also particularly offend the LORD JESUS and outrage the mysteries of His Gospel and scandalize His people But I have said that the Apostle does also by these words regulate and limit that subjection which the wife oweth her Husband For adding to the rest that in the LORD or according to the LORD he evidently sheweth that it reacheth no further than to such things as do not offend JESUS CHRIST She is subject to her husband I acknowledge but in things wherein she is not rebellious against GOD. She ought to please him but on condition she displease not their common LORD She owes him her obedience and her assistance and her service in adversity and in all the troubles of houshold affairs but not in sin The will of JESUS CHRIST is the true boundary of her subjection and complacency She ought to put on so far but further she may not pass without perrishing Whatever tye we have to any creature it still leaves the rights of GOD entire because our obligation unto Him is the first and most ancient the strictest and most necessary of all that we are under And if the Husband pretend to oblige his Wife or the Father his Child or the Prince his Subject unto any violation of the commands of GOD that is either to do what He forbids or not to do what He injoyns Acts 5.29 Luke 14.26 Matt. 10.37 in this case the faithful soul is to remember that we ought to obey GOD rather than men and that if we love father or mother husband or wife children or brethren or sisters or even our own lives more than CHRIST we are not worthy of Him nor can be His disciples But having thus heard the lesson which the Apostle gives the wife let us now hearken unto that he gives the husband Husbands saith he love your Wives and be not bitter against them He commands 'em to love them and forbids 'em to be bitter against them and in these few words compriseth all their duty This duty is no whit less just but indeed more sweet and pleasing than that which he prescribed the wives And observe I pray the Apostles prudence For when he had allotted the woman subjection for her share consequence seemed to require that he should give the man command and government for his But he doth it not He established the man's authority sufficiently by putting the woman in subjection to him and for the most part his strength and the other advantages of his sex do cause him to assume but too much Wherefore in stead of saying Husbands govern your wives or command them or of using some such word importing authority he saith unto them Love your wives to sweeten on one hand the subjection of the wife and to temper on the other hand the authority of the husband Wife let not your subjection fright you the Apostle subjects you not but to a person who loves you Husband let not your authority make you insolent If the Apostle subject your wife unto you it 's only to the end you love her Derive no vanity either the one or the other of you from the advantages he gives you If the love which the husband owes his wife make her haughty let her remember that withall she is subject unto him that loves her And if the authority which GOD giveth the husband flatter him let him not forget that the wife is not submitted to him but for the obliging him to love her the more Further this love which the Apostle would have husbands bear their wives is a sacred and sincere affection produced in their hearts not simply by that pleasing form and that grace and sweetness which naturally makes men love and seek unto this sex and which how perfect and charming soever it may be is at most but a flower of a very short and uncertain duration but principally by the will of GOD who hath joyned them with 'em who hath given them to them for companions in their good and bad fortunes for helps in all the parts of their life for a perpetuating of their name and lineage for the diminishing of their troubles and the augmenting of their joyes This perpetual and indivisible union which bindeth them together and which of two persons hath changed them into one flesh which hath mingled together all their interests and in their dear Children inseparably combined and confounded their blood and very nature all this I say must kindle in the foul of husbands a pure and an inviolable love unto their wives then again this love must flow forth from the heart into the external actions discovering and evidencing its self by such continual effects as may be truly worthy of it For love is not a dead picture nor a vain phantasie nor an idol without life and action It 's the liveliest and most active of all our sentiments It 's a will that affecteth and sets all the power one hath on work to procure some good to the person whom it loveth The first effect of this love is to be pleased in the presence of that which a man loves and not be able to suffer the absence of it long without disquiet The second to communicate to it all a man possesseth that is good and the third to guard and preserve it from all incommodity and molestation It 's thus the
him when the LORD calleth us thereto It 's this way Christians that we shall get to that heavenly Kingdom in which St. Paul is lodg'd after his combats and there receive with him from the merciful hand of our Father the glorious crown of immortality which He on His great day will give to us and to all those that shall have lov'd the appearing of His Son unto Whom with Him and the Holy Spirit the only true GOD blessed for ever be honour praise and glory to ages of ages Amen THE FORTY NINTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. IV. VER XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII Verse XII Epaphras who is one of you a servant of CHRIST saluteth you striving alwaies for you in prayer that ye might abide perfect and compleat in all the will of GOD. XIII For I bear him record that he hath a great zeal for you and for them who are of Laodicea and for them of Hierapolis XIV Luke the beloved Physician saluteth you and Demas also XV. Salute the brethren who are at Laodicea and Nymphas and the Church which is in his house XVI And when this Epistle hath been read among you cause that it be also read in the Church of the Laodiceans and that you read also the Epistle from Laodicea XVII And say to Archippus take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the LORD that thou fulfill it XVIII The salutation by the own hand of me Paul Remember my bonds Grace be with you Amen DEAR Brethren The LORD JESUS being upon the point to quit the earth and making as it were a declaration of His last will chargeth His Disciples above all things to love one another with a sincere and ardent affection like that He bore us This mutual love He appoints to be the badge of our profession Joh. 13.35 By this saith he shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another Accordingly you know that His Spirit failed not to imprint this Divine mark upon those first Christians whom He formed in the City of Jerusalem by the Apostles preaching Acts 4.32 animated with the vertue of His heavenly fire The whole multitude of them saith the holy story was of one heart and of one soul neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own but they had all things common This union and admirable correspondence continued a long time among the faithful and was observed by the Pagans with wonder witness he who about two hundred years after the birth of our LORD reproacheth Christians that they know one another by certain secret signs and love almost before they are acquainted and all of them call one another indifferently brethren and sisters Now as error and passion do abuse the best things this poor ignorant takes their holy and divine concord for some execrable conspiracy and referrs the mysterie of their amity unto infamous commerces whereas all their union grew from Heaven and was founded upon piety and breathed nothing but honesty and sanctity nor did tend but to the glory of GOD and the supreme happiness of men Beside the Apostles writings which expos'd in publick view did plainly discover to the unpassionate how pure and honest and holy the laws of their charity were the manners and the lives and actions of those primitive Christians did also evidently justifie the same There are left us GOD be thanked divers excellent informations in the books of the first antiquity by which the marvels of the charity and mutual love of those holy men do plainly appear And not to speak of others you have fair and illustrious marks of it in this conclusion of St. Paul's Epistle unto the Colossians who sheweth us that his prison neither hindred divers faithful men from joyning themselves unto him in this affliction nor him nor them again from minding absent Christians and charitably embracing the Churches of Colosse and Laodicea and Hierapolis You here see the love of Pastors to their flocks the dear affection of flocks to their Pastors and the divine communication of Churches one with another Psal 133.1 If therefore it be a goood and pleasant thing as the Psalmist singeth to see brethren maintaining a due entercourse with each other grudge not this hour My Beloved which we yet oblige you to spend in the consideration of this Text having not been able to finish it entirely in our last action Let this admirable amity of the first Christians rejoyce you and give you an ardent desire to imitate it Have ye for one another sentiments and movings of heart like to theirs You have already heard how St. Paul having advertised the faithful at Colosse that he sent Tychicus and Onesimus unto them to inform them of his estate doth give them the recommendations of Aristarchus and Mark and Jesus He now addeth those of Epaphras and Luke and Demas and then his own to the Church of Laodicea and to a faithful man named Nymphas with an order to impart this his Epistle to them and to advertise Archippus of his duty Whereupon he endeth with his ordinary salutation conjuring them to remember his bonds and recommending them to the grace of GOD. For the deducing of these four points by the assistance of GOD in the same order as they are couched in the Text we must first consider who these three persons were whose salutations the Apostle presents to the Colossians The first of the three is Epaphras of whom he spake afore in very honourable terms at the beginning of this Epistle where he stileth him Colos 1.7 8. his dear fellow servant and a faithful Minister of CHRIST and gives him the glory of having instructed the Colossians in the knowledge of the Gospel and of having taken the care to let him know the charity they had for him Here he qualifies him in like manner a fervant of CHRIST that is a Minister of his and an Officer of His house in the work of the Gospel Moreover he informs us that this holy man was a Colossian that is was born in their City or at least made his ordinary abode there Epaphras saith he who is one of you a servant of CHRIST saluteth you Some learned men * Grotius Phil. 2.28 are of opinion that it 's this same Pastor whom the Apostle calls Epaphroditus and of whom he says so much good in the Epistle to the Philippians But I do not see that this conjecture is either founded or followed by any of the ancients I confess that the name Epaphras is a contraction of Epaphroditus and such a diminution is ordinary in the Greek and in the Latin tongue in the proper names of men But if it were one and the same person there is no reason why the Apostle should name him diversly in these two Epistles in the one contractedly and with diminution in the other the name at length and entire Considering withal that no part of what is
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
so as it is declared in the Gospel not in Error and in Fictions and Lies as in false Religions nor in shadow and in figure as in the Law of Moses but nakedly and simply as it is in it self Of these three Expositions all good and convenient the First is to the praise of the Colossians the Second to that of Epaphras their Pastor and the third to the praise of the Gospel it self But as to Epaphras he speaks of Him by name in the two last Verses of this Text which make the second part of it And to commend Him to the Colossians and win him their hearts and respect He gives an excellent testimony of his fidelity his candour and his goodness As also saith he you have learned 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 holy Apostle knew how much it concerneth Churches for their edification to have a good opinion of their Pastors and with what artifices the enemy laboureth ordinarily to decry the faithful servants of GOD and ruine their reputation among their flocks therefore it is that he here exalteth Epaphras as his piety deserved and to take out of the Colossians all suspicion against the purity of his teachings advertiseth them expresly that the doctrine they had learned of him was in truth the same Gospel of which he had spoken And from this great care the Apostle hath of Epaphras's reputation the Ministers of the LORD should learn to set themselves the best they can in the Spirit of their people abstaining not from evil only but also from its appearances and whatsoever might make them to be suspected of it It is not enough to approve the goodness of our life to our own conscience We must also if it may be content the judgement of our neighbours Innocence is necessary for our selves and reputation for others And since it serves to edifie them we are evidently obliged to preserve not our own only but also the reputation of our fellow-brethren whom GOD hath setled in the same charge for if we bite and rend one another who sees not but the particular reproach of each one will be the common infamy and ruine of us all But since the reputation of Pastors is a publick good which tendeth to the edification of the whole Church you see again that each faithful person oweth it a particular respect and that the crime of those who violate it unjustly is a kind of Sacriledge It 's a robbing of the Church and stealing from it it 's edification to black by calumny and detractions the life and doctrine of them that serve it or to expose them to laughter and contempt by scoffings and revilings But to return to Epaphras the Apostle crowneth him with two or three excellent Elogies First He calleth him his dear fellow-servant Admire I beseech you the candour and the goodness the humility and the modesty of this holy man His candor for whereas ordinarily there 's jealousie between persons of the same faculty St. Paul contrarily acknowledgeth and exalteth the Gifts and Vertue of this servant of GOD. His goodness for He tenderly loves Him as every where else He plainly sheweth that of all men there were none he more affected than the faithful Ministers of the Gospel His humility lastly in that being raised on the Throne of the Apostolick dignity the highest in the Church he maketh Epaphras as one may say to sit there with Him owning Him for His fellow Next He termeth Him a Minister of CHRIST It was much to be fellow-servant with St. Paul but it is much more to be the Minister of CHRIST the LORD of glory the Head of the Church the Soveraign Monarch of Men and Angels Judge with what reason some of our adversaries mock at the title we assume qualifying our selves Ministers of CHRIST or of His Gospel since it is the word that the Apostle useth here expresly to signifie that holy charge which GOD hath called us unto But He doth not term Epaphras simply a Minister of CHRIST He saith moreover that He is a faithful Minister the quality of Minister was common to him with many others the praise of faithfulness with few 'T is all that the Apostle did require in a good Steward of the House of GOD. 1 Cor. 4.1 2. Let each one hold us saith he for Ministers of CHRIST and Stewards of the mysteries of GOD. Moreover it is required in Stewards that each one be found faithful To have the praise thereof the Minister of the LORD must First Seek the glory of his Master and not his own and Secondly Keep close to His Orders without hiding from or envying to His Sheep any of the things committed to him for their edification without setting before them ought of His own invention beyond or against the will of the chief Shepheard But though all these good qualities greatly recommended Epaphras to the Colossians He addeth yet another which no less than the rest obliged them tenderly to love and cherish him namely that He employed the Master's talents to their edification He is saith he a faithful Minister of CHRIST for you They ought therefore to love him both for the dignity of his Office and for the profit that came in to them thereby For though we be obliged to love and respect all the faithful servants of GOD in general yet there is no doubt but we owe a particular affection and reverence to those who peculiarly consecrate their Ministry to our edification In fine the Apostle tells them that this holy servant of GOD had advertised Him of the pure and spiritual love they bore Him He hath declared to us saith he that is both to Him and to Timothy your charity which you have in Spirit I count that by charity he meaneth here not in general the Christian Vertue which we ordinarily call by this name for of the Charity of the Colossians so understood he had already spoken in the fourth Verse but the affection these faithful people had for St. Paul And He calleth it a Charity or Love in Spirit that is spiritual because it was founded upon the Spirit and not upon the flesh upon the interests of Heaven and not of Earth And here consider I beseech you how dextrous and industrious Epaphras was to knit spiritual friendships The Colossians had never seen St. Paul 't is he without doubt that had recounted to them the excellent vertue and piety of this great man and by this means enkindled in their souls that holy and spiritual charity they had for Him And see again how by the relation he makes to the Apostle of the love these believers bore Him He possesseth His soul with a reciprocal affection towards them O holy and blessed tongue that sowest nothing in the hearts of the faithful but charity and love how far now-adayes from thy candour and sincere goodness
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
Himself without witness and that He hath made manifest in His works what may be known of Him But all this light doth only shew us the greatness of their corruption For they with all the vivacity of their spirits made no proficiency in the School of Providence unto the fearing of GOD and serving Him but became vain in their reasonings and miserably abused the gifts of Heaven so as the whole success of this dispensation was nought else on their part but that they were thereby rendred inexcusable Conclude we then that all men generally not one excepted are of their own nature such as the Apostle here describes the Colossians strangers and enemies to GOD in their understanding in wicked works There is nothing but the word of the LORD alone which is able to bring them out of this estate by the saving grace of His Spirit wherewith GOD accompanies it And this the Apostle representeth here to the Colossians in the second place For having minded them of their former condition he addeth Yet now hath GOD reconciled you by the body of His flesh that is the flesh of JESUS CHRIST by His death The condition they were in before was very miserable For what can be imagined more wretched than men far from and strangers to GOD in whose communion alone all their welfare consisteth men enemies to Him without whose love they can have no true good yet besides misery there was horrour also in their case Misery doth ordinarily stir up pity their 's was worthy of abhorring and hatred For what is there in the world that less deserves the compassion of GOD and men or is more worthy of the execration of Heaven and Earth than a Subject that withdraweth from His Soveraign that hates Him and Warrs against Him that insolently violates all His Laws and abandons himself to all the crimes He hath forbidden especially if the Soveraign be gracious and beneficent as the LORD is the only Author of all the being life and motion that we have Nevertheless Oh inestimable and incomprehensible goodness GOD for all this forbore not to have pity on the Colossians He sought to them when they were alienated from Him He offered them peace when they made War upon Him He took them for His friends and chose them for His Children when they shewed Him the greatest hatred and enmity Their wicked works deserved His curse and He bestowed on them His grace Their rebellion deserved His direful flashes and He sent them His comfortable light This opposition the Apostle indicateth here when he saith And yet you hath God reconciled A like opposition he expresseth elsewhere Rom. 5.8 in the same matter saying GOD altogether commendeth His love to us-ward in that while we were but sinners CHRIST dyed for us For the setting forth of this great grace of GOD towards these faithful people he saith that GOD hath reconciled them Having spoken of their estrangement and of their enmity with GOD He doth with good reason make use of the word Reconcile to signifie the setting of them again in His good liking and favour It happens somtimes in the misunderstandings of men that the averseness and hatred is but on one side one of the parties seeking the favour of the other Here as we have yerst intimated the aversion was mutual For we hated GOD and He because of our sins hated us It was necessary therefore for the restoring of us that both the one and the other of these two passions should be remedied that is that the wrath of GOD against us should be appeased and our hatred and enmity against Him extinguished The word Reconcile doth of its self comprehend both the one and the other But in the Apostle's writings it referreth principally to the first that is the mitigation and appeasing of the wrath of GOD. As indeed this is the principal point of our reconciliation For GOD being our soveraign LORD it would not benefit us at all to change our will towards Him if His did not operate otherwise towards us as the repentance and tears of a subject are vain if his Prince reject them and remain still angry with Him Furthermore the word Reconcile as also the most part of other words of like form and nature is taken two manner of ways For either it signifies simply the action that hath such vertue as is necessary to make reconciliation or it compriseth the effect of it also It 's in the first sense that the Apostle used it afore where he said that GOD hath reconciled all things celestial and terrestrial in Himself or for Himself having made peace by the blood of the cross of CHRIST For he meaneth simply that GOD hath taken away the causes of hatred and enmity and opened the way of reconciliation not that all things are already actually reconciled It 's thus again that we must take 2 Cor. 5.19 what he saith elsewhere that GOD was in CHRIST reconciling the world unto Himself not imputing unto them their trespasses But the Apostle takes the word Reconcile in the second sense when he saith that we have obtained reconciliation by CHRIST and when he beseecheth us to be reconciled to GOD it being evident that in these places he intendeth not the right and power only but the very effect and actual having of reconciliation It 's after this second way that we must take the word reconcile in the Text. For again this Reconciation may be considered two ways first in general as made by JESUS CHRIST on the Cross and secondly in particular as applyed to each of us by Faith In the first consideration it is presented to all men as sufficient for their salvation according to that doctrine of the Apostle Tit. 2.11 1 Joh. 2.2 that the Grace of GOD is saving to all men and that also of St. John that JESVS CHRIST is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world Under the second consideration it appertaineth only to the faithful according to that clause of the covenant which declareth That the only Son was given to the world that whosoever believeth in Him Joh. 3.16 should have eternal life It 's precisely in this sense the Apostle saith here that GOD had reconciled the Colossians he meaneth not simply that GOD had given them through the cross of His Son that they might be reconciled to Him by believing but also that He had effectively reconciled them to Himself and put them in real possession of the benefits that were purchased for us by the merit of CHRIST embracing them as His children pardoning them all their sins and obliviating all His wrath and the aversion their offences had given Him towards them But the Apostle mentions to them yet again here the means by which this reconciliation was effected as being a thing of infinite importance both to the glory of GOD and their edification He hath reconciled you saith he by the body of 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
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
of the same and giving of thanks He expresseth the first two ways First in metaphorical terms being rooted and built up in JESVS CHRIST And next properly and without figure being established or confirmed in faith For this confirmation in faith is no other thing than the self-same that he intendeth by the words rooted and built up in JESVS CHRIST The first of these two Metaphors is taken from Trees which stand firm and easily resist the violence of winds when they have put forth good and deep roots into the earth which serve them for so many stays and bands to hold them fast whereas the Plants which have but little or no root are easily pluckt up the least gust yea the hand of a Child is enough to overthrow them The faithful are often in Scripture compared unto trees You all know the Parable of the Fig-tree in the Gospel Psa 92.13 14 and that of the Palm-tree in the Psalms The just shall flourish as the Palm-tree and grow as the Cedar in Lebanon And there 's no one in the Church but is acquainted with that dainty Tree planted by the rivers of waters which bringeth its fruit in its season and the leaves whereof doth not wither Psal 1.3 which the Psalmist gives us a picture of at the beginning of his Book for an image of a true believer Whence it comes that the Ministers who labour in the culture of these Mystical Plants are likened to Gardeners and Vine-dressers and Husbandmen such an one was he in that Evangelical Parable Luke 13.8 who prayed the Owner to supersede the sentence pronounced upon one of his fig-trees And S. Paul also expresseth his own and Apollos his labouring for the edification of the faithful in terms taken from the same subject saying that he planted and Apollos watered 1 Cor. 3.6 â— In consequence of these figurative expressions which are familiar in Scripture you see that it is with much gracefulness and a great deal of reason that the Apostle here to recommend firmness of faith in JESUS CHRIST doth say they should be rooted in Him He saith the same again elsewhere when he prayeth GOD to strengthen the Ephesians by his spirit Eph. 3.18 that saith he being rooted and founded in love they might be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length the heighth and depth and to know the love of Christ For since the faithful man is compared to a tree it is congruous to attribute to him both the production that is fruits and the parts of a tree whereof the principal is the root We say then that a tree is well rooted when its root is spread abroad and thrust far into the ground where it is planted and fastned to it so many ways that it stands upright and firm nor can be plucked up without extream difficulty Who then is the believer rooted in CHRIST Even the man whose whose soul embraceth the LORD JESUS all whose thoughts and affections are stretch'd forth and fastned to this Divine crucified Saviour who hath neither love nor desire nor affiance but for Him It is he who having rightly understood the excellency and the fulness of this rich Subject seeks all his felicity in it and withdrawing the desires the cares and affections of his heart from earth which are as it were the strings and roots of our nature by which it is fastned to its objects doth thrust them forth towards JESUS CHRIST doth unite with and bind them about Him and resteth on him alone and draweth the nutriment of his life from none other â—s you know trees by their root do receive all that juice which makes them â—â—ve shoot forth and fructifie Not to alledg any other example such a one was our Paul so fastned was he unto and so incorporated with his LORD that he liv'd in Him alone this divine ground wherein he was planted affording him all the joy all the contentment and all the life he had There is no need to fear that those who adhere to JESUS CHRIST in such a manner who are so really and deeply rooted in Him can ever be pluck'd up by any effort how violent soever it be The winds do in vain shake them tempests do beat upon them to no purpose persecutions will not be able to make them bend nor fraud nor eloquence nor the subtilty of Sophisters remove them Novelties and Curiosities do not tempt them because that sweet sap which they continually draw from their CHRIST as from a rich soil doth content them and purgeth them of that foolish and childish itching humour which openeth the ears of the weak and unstable to such things But if you be not thus rooted in CHRIST it will be no great difficulty to pluck you from the station you are in If it be not this heavenly efficacy of our LORD but either birth or breeding or the discourse or authority of men or the name of liberty or any other such like cause which keeps you in the profession of Christianity I am much afraid you will not long abide in it If your heart be in the world if it still spread its affections as its roots into perishing things if it still admire the pleasures of the flesh and the fumes of ambition and the vanity of riches your perseverance is in truth very dubious The tree that hath no root hath no hold The first gust that falls upon it bears it down And would to God experience had less justified this truth in our eyes But this is the very cause of all their change who have deserted us If you examine their lives you will find they were not well rooted in CHRIST JESUS Wonder not that they were overthrown But let us make our profit of their unhappiness obeying the Apostle And that we may abide firm for ever in the communion of this Divine LORD of ours out of which there is nothing but misery and perdition let us be rooted in him with a lively and profound faith and love Let us love and relish him only and inseparably fasten all the powers of our souls to him alone as dead and risen again for us drawing all our righteousness from his Cross and all our hope and our glory from his Heavenly state and his immortality I come to the other Metaphor here used by the Apostle to set forth the confirming of our faith in JESUS CHRIST being rooted saith he and built up in JESVS CHRIST The former was taken from Trees and this now is drawn from Buildings It is no less famous in Scripture than the other for the faithful are there oftentimes compared to Houses and particularly to Temples and the Church that is the Society consisting of them collectively is represented to us under the same image Whence it comes that the labours of the Servants of the Lord for this end are also called edifyings a word so common in this sense that there is no need we should stay to explain
Philosophers defined good by this its refâ—â—â— to our affections and by the vertue it hath to move and attract our desires 〈◊〉 Good is that which all desire And hence it comes that Impostors who 〈◊〉 trade of seducing men have alwaies taken a great deal of care to give their 〈◊〉 vain institutions some shew of goodness being not ignorant that witho◠〈◊〉 they should not be able to gain any mans affections and much less to have any train of followers in the world This is to be seen particularly in religion into wâ—â—â—n never was heresie nor superstition introduced but under the favour of this in posture though spirits of different capacities having medled in the matter there haâ—â— been accordingly a great difference between their cosenages For as those that would make a false stone pass for a Diamond or an Emerald or a Ruby do endeavour as farr as cunning is able to counterfeit the truth to give it the colour the shape the lustre the sparkling and other qualities thereof that by such a feigned resemblance they may deceive simple and unexperienced persons So they that have set themselves upon the corrupting of Religion to the end they might make the opinions and services they promoted be received for sound doctrines and disciplines have above all things taken a great deal of pains to guild over their merchandize and to colour it with some fair and specious pretexts fit to dazle the eyes of men and hide the defects of their doctrine and give it the shew of what in substance it is not It is this that the Apostle S. Paul doth observe here in the documents and commandments of those Seducers whom he undertook in this Chapter For having solidly and admirably refuted that superstitious discipline which they had set a foot and which consisted in a religious worshipping of Angels and in a scrupulous abstinence from certain meats and in the observation of certain festival days for a conclusion he discovers in this last verse the false colours wherewith they did in vain dawb it over He acknowledgeth that it had its true some shew of wisdom but denies that this was sufficient to cover its defects or to oblige the faithful to receive it Their Ordinances said he afore are commandments and doctrines of men Which yet he now adds have some shew of wisdom in voluntary devotion and humility of spirit and in that they do not at all spare the body and have no regard to the satisfying of the flesh It is evident that he speaks of those humane doctrines which he had been mentioning in the verse immediately foregoing and he says first that they have a shew of wisdom Next he represents particularly three things which give them this false shew voluntary service humility of spirit and rough treatment of the body which they did not at all spare These are as it were the three colours which being mingled together by the artifice of the Seducers composed that paint which rendred their doctrine plausible and gave it this false shew of wisdom that beguiled the eyes of the simple In compliance with this distinction we shall treat of three points in this action voluntary service humility of spirit and little care for the body and then consider how error and superstition have always made and still to this day make use of them to glose their inventions GOD grant us to beware duly of them and please for this end so to guide and assist us by His Spirit in discoursing of them as we may all bear away some Edification and Consolation The name of wisdom is great and honourable in the opinion of all people in the world For whereas other Sciences have respect but to natural or humane the relation of wisdom is to Divine things And whereas other knowledges are for the most part unprofitable to him who possesseth them that of wisdom is salutiferous it signifying the skill of conducting ones way aright for the attainment of happiness by the light of some choice and excellent verities Whence it follows that this title of wisdom doth not properly belong but to the knowledge of GOD which He hath given us by His Son in the Gospel the only light that is capable of conducting us to supreme felicity Accordingly you know it is the name that S. Paul does ordinarily give it as when he willeth that the word of GOD dwell richly in us in all wisdom and when he saith elsewhere that he speaks wisdom among them that are perfect calling the same a little after the wisdom of GOD in a mysterie the hidden wisdom and so often elsewhere Now though the doctrine of those who corrupt the Gospel as these Seducers did who S. Paul opposeth in this Chapter be nothing less in reality than wisdom yet so it is that its authors gave it the name and would have it pass in the belief of men for a rare and a beneficial knowledge more worthy of heaven than earth and capable in fine of rendring those that follow it perfect and happy The Apostle acknowledgeth that the doctrine of the Seducers of his time had this shew of wisdom but by his very granting them the shew hâ— denies them the truth of it and his meaning is that that doctrine of theirs had nothing but a false and a deceitful colour of wisdom not the substance and reality of the thing Voluntary service is the first particular that gave these doctrines of the Seducers such a shew They have saith the Apostle some shew of wisdom in voluntary service that is by reason or because of the voluntary service they taught and set a foot the observances and institutions which these men enjoyed as abstinence from certain meats the worshipping of Angels and the like being nothing else but voluntary services A service may be called voluntary two manner of waies First when he that performs it unto GOD doth it with affection and a good will without torment and constraint The love he bears this great and soveraign LORD sweetly bringing his soul under His yoke and disposing him to account whatsoever He hath commanded to be good and delectable In this sense that free and sincere obedience which true believers render unto GOD according to the Gospel may be stiled voluntary because it proceeds not from a spirit of bondage as theirs doth who do serve only because they are afraid but from a spirit of Love and of Adoption crying in their hearts Abba Father Wherefore the Prophet termeth the new people who render this frank and filial service unto GOD Psal 110.3 under the Gospel of the Messiah a voluntary or willing people Thy people saith he speaking to Him shall be a voluntary people or a people of frank willingness in the day that thou shalt assemble thine army in holy pomp It is not in this sense that the Apostle understands the voluntary service he speaks of in this place For first though the terms voluntary service which are taken up
Scriptures of GOD they plead to us that they are voluntary services which are performed with a good intention and do tend to humble the Spirit Their Fastings and Abstinences their Watchings and Pilgrimages their Whippings and Disciplines and all the odd exercises of their Monks are not in the least commanded of GOD. But what skills it The more voluntary they are say they the more meritorious and then on the other hand they mortifie the body which they spare not at all having no regard to the satisfying of its desires There 's nothing but they might make pass for good and godly with this specious pigment I might justly plead against these vain pretexts that GOD's will ought to be the rule of ours and that it is dangerous to trust our intentions in matter of Religion seeing it often comes to pass that GOD hath that in abomination which does most please our thoughts as also that it is a proud and an extravagant humility to give men a power over our Consciences which it is the prerogative of GOD alone to have and that if the not sparing of the body do serve for the mortifying of it it follows not that we must place divine service therein I might alledge these and many other things and found them by the Scripture to demonstrate the vanity of their pretexts But for this time I content me with the Apostle's example and authority He acknowledgeth that the Doctrines of those Seducers whom he doth oppose had these three very colours and that the same gave them a shew of wisdom And yet for all this he doth not forbear to reject them making so little account of that shew of theirs that he vouchsafes not to spend one word upon the refutation of it How specious soever their Doctrines be it 's enough for his condemning them that they were instituted and taught by men and not by the LORD clearly presupposing by this procedure of his that all Christians should hold it for an undoubted maxime that Religious service must be measured by the will of GOD and not by ours by His order and not our phansie and that the foundation of our humility is the respect we owe him not to submit our Consciences to any besides Him Let then the Traditions of Rome in other regards be of what quality you please let them have all the colours of wisdom let them be voluntary and humble and meet to mortifie the flesh You will do much by setting all this pompous shew in view You will gain much by laying it forth before mine eyes and declaiming to me of the advantages of those things I cannot receive them except you shew me that it is GOD hath instituted them and not the will of man The Apostle hath taught me to make so little account of these kind of reasons as that I should not vouchsafe so much as to amuse my self to consider them After having heard you it sufficeth me to tell you as he saith here to the Seducers of his time that if your Doctrines have this shew of wisdom which you attribute to them they are in conclusion but humane things since GOD hath not at all commanded them in His word Yet upon thorough examination it will be found My Brethren that the most of their inventions do want not the reality alone but the colour and the very shew of wisdom For I beseech you what shadow of wisdom is there in this Lent for instance which they began the other day after the ordinary Preface of their Carneval What reason or common sense is there that can affirm if it be free that it is wisdom after license taken for all kind of debauches and fooleries to imagine an handful of ashes will efface it all That it is wisdom to believe the eating of Fish is fasting That it is wisdom to think the eating Herbs or Salmon or Green-fish is a sanctifying ones self and that to taste but a bit of Bief or Mutton during these forty days is to defile ones soul with a sin mortal and meriting eternal fire as if the whole nature of things were changed in a moment and the living Creatures of the earth from being good and wholsome as they were but four dayes ago became contagious and deadly Is it wisdom to tye up Christianity to an observance which hath so little reason in it and to say as they do that such as eat any flesh within this time are not Christians There is no understanding how ordinary soever but may easily judge that all this hath no shew of wisdom in it to say no worse And it is to no purpose to tell us that it 's not the nature of the things themselves but the commandment of their Church that makes them be of this opinion For if these things be not true in themselves their Church does ill to authorize them and besides that it contravenes the rules of wisdom evidently violates those of charity also as straitning the way to Heaven and augmenting the difficulty of entring there and damning men for things which without its commandment would be free and indifferent Let us lay aside then I beseech you my Brethren all these humane Commandments which are so far from being just and necessary that they have not for the most part so much as that vain shew of wisdom which the Apostle granted the Doctrines of the Seducers of his time had Hold we to the Sacred and saving institututions of our LORD JESUS which all are just all reasonable all full of deep Mat. 16.11 and truly Divine wisdom Let us believe as he hath taught us that 't is not what enters in at the mouth that doth defile a man but what cometh out of the heart and that the Kingdom of GOD Rom. 14.17 is not meat or drink but righteousness peace and joy of the Holy Ghost Serve we Him according to His own rule and not according to the imaginations of men Let our will be bound up to His let it count it self happy in following the same and not presume to guide it self Let it learn of Him what it oweth Him not be so arrogant as to define it after its own phansie The task He hath given us is great enough for our employing all the time and strength we have without diverting ought of the same any other way It 's in this that true humility consists even in submitting absolutely to JESUS CHRIST in refusing no particular of what He would have in attempting nothing beyond His orders He it is clear would have us to love GOD with all our heart and our Neighbour as our selves and that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in the present world looking for His glorious appearance This Beloved Brethren is the rule of the Israel of GOD that was delivered by JESUS CHRIST Preached by His Apostles confirmed by their Miracles and by the Conversion of the World Peace and Mercy be to all that shall
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
with so rich a portion not envy any of the creatures the perfections and happiness they have Our whole life would be a perpetual feastival whereon free from the travail and turmoil of worldlings contemplating in spirit the glory of the Palace of our LORD meditating His promises breathing after His benefits and enjoying them for the present by faith and Hope we should in repose wait for the blessed day of our glorious triumph But alas how far are we from such a felicity This wretched and perishing earth is the sole object of our minds Our souls are no less fastned to it than our bodies It swalloweth up all our thoughts it possesseth our affections it takes up our cares and our labours and hath the use of all our time We have no desires and love but for the false goods which it sheweth us nor fear and horrour but for the evils wherewith it threatneth us As for Heaven and the things it comprehendeth we are so far from seeking them that we not so much as think of them except it be dreamingly or in manner of a divertisement when we are told of them in this place looking on the stately representations which JESUS CHRIST hath drawn us of them as an empty picture fair indeed and pleasing but good for nought saving to feed our eyes with a short and bootless pleasure not attracting nor engaging our desires This is the cause why our whole life is miserable full of griefs and fears of weaknesses of regrets and infelicities The least strokes overturn us the least losses and slightest afflictions bear us down because not being fastned to Heaven the only firm and sure place of the World we fluctuate exposed to the mercy of all that comes against us And as children cannot be appeased when their puppets are taken from them because they have set all their affection on them so are we seized and do take on when we come to lose some of these toyes of the earth There is no way to comfort us because we have fastned our hearts to them And to say truth our condition is worse than other mens they at least are subject but to the evils that either the infirmity of nature or as they call it the inconstancy of fortune do bring with them whereas besides these the bad Christian who is not a Christian but in name is moreover exposed to the persecution of the World so as to say plainly there is nothing more foolish nor more wretched than he who hath part in the temporal sufferings and hardships of true beleevers and none at all in their consolation or blessedness inasmuch as his profession exposes Him to the hatred of the World and his vice excludes him from the Kingdom of GOD. Awake then ye that are worldly and come once out of so dangerous an errour Let not the trumpet of Heaven the voice of our great Apostle have founded now in your ears in vain Do not add this contempt to your other crimes He hath advertised you of your duty He hath declared the reasons that oblige you to it Take heed lest if you shut your ears against JESUS CHRIST who speaks by His mouth you perish in the end with this earth and the things you seek on it How do you not perceive that you shall never find there the happiness you seek Why hath not the experience of so many millions of persons who daily spend themselves in this vain labour taught you that the things of the earth are all of them but vanities and illusions transient figures which promise pleasure honour and contentment but afford none which do not cure the maladies of the body nor of the soul which infinitely toil out those that seek them and never fill the hearts of those that possess them multiplying their desires and their fears inflaming and envenoming their passions instead of extinguishing them which are subject to infinite mutations which men and elements may bereave you of every moment and which considering the short and uncertain duration of the life we lead here below you can enjoy but a very little time supposing that nothing does deprive you of them before death At that time Matt. 16.26 What will it profit a man to have gained the whole world and lose his own soul It is sure a blindness incredible to one that saw it not I do not say that a Christian who hath hopes of the world to come but that even any reasonable man should adhere with so ardent and obstinate a passion unto such wretched and fruitless things We perceive it and confess it and make the bravest discourses in the World upon it and after all that false lustre which we behold in these things hath such a faculty to bewitch our senses that not a person but lets himself be caught thereby But the worst is that besides errour and vanity there 's in it a tendency to eternal damnation For men may not slatter themselves None can serve two Masters nor look on Heaven and earth both together He that seeks the one must of necessity renounce the other it being no more possible to seek than it 's to find at once the things beneath and those which are above Faithful Brethren choose you and take the better part and leaving worldly men to labour in vain after the things of the earth and to seek in it what they shall never find turn you your hearts and eyes towards Heaven as the Apostle calleth you to do There Christian is the felicity you desire There dwelleth rest and joy and immortality and the perfection of both soul and body These are the only things that are truly worthy of your prayers and your pains Seek them and mind them night and day Give your selves no rest till you have found them and do feel the first-fruits and beginnings of them in your hearts Let these thoughts sweeten your sufferings and consolate your losses T is in vain that you threaten me ye people of the World You cannot deprive me of what I possess nor hinder me from finding what I seek since upon the things of Heaven you have no power Whatever you bereave me of the best part of my treasure and the only part that deserves that appellation will still remain entire to me Let the same thought arm us against all tentations Thou Tempter promisest me the things of the earth but I seek those of Heaven which thou canst not dispose of Though I should lose all I have here below even to this flesh its self yet shall I find it again with a thousand-fold increase in Heaven Let this thought again keep us continually busied in the good and worthy actions of piety charity and honesty Let our manners resemble those of the inhabitants of that divine City which wee seek Let the light of their knowledge the ardency of their love the purity of their affections shine forth now betimes in our lives 'T is that to which that new nature JESUS
here that CHRIST is our life doth not simply signifie that He is the cause and author of our life but that it fully and wholly dependeth upon Him that without Him and separate from Him we have not a drop nor spark of life and that it is in Him alone we have all the being all the moving and all the feeling that respects the life of Heaven In very deed it is He that hath merited it for us by His death It is He that hath brought it to light by His Gospel It 's He hath shewed us a most accomplish'd pattern of it in His person at His issuing out of His sepulchre It 's He that hath given us the first-fruits of it by His word and Spirit and conserveth and increaseth them in us by His benediction It is He that keeps the fulness of it for us in His treasury on high as being the true Father of eternity And lastly it is He that taking this glorious life out of His heavenly cabinet one day will put it on us with His own hand Besides we do possess neither the beginnings nor the perfection of it but in Him and by the benefit of our communion with Him in that we are members and branches of His which cannot live but united with their head and incorporated in their vine The Apostle therefore saith that when this soveraign and only author of our life shall appear then we also shall appear in glory He hath appeared once already but in the flesh as the Apostle sayes GOD was manifested in the flesh He shall appear again a second time but in glory It 's this second appearing he doth mean when the LORD JESUS descending from the Heavens with the host of His Angels and seating Himself on a judicial Throne shall openly shew to all the creatures of the World His Glory and Godhead which the Heavens that contain his flesh on high and the weaknesses that cover His mystical body here below do now hide from the earth as we lately said Then saith the Apostle shall you also appear with Him in Glory At the coming of this sweet and happy season you as plants in the spring shall receive your life which from that sacred stock wherein it is now conserved shall be diffused into you and into all the other branches of this vine of GOD and crown you at an instant with its eternal verdure The glory whereof he speaks doth signifie the light the perfections the wonders and the pomp of blissful life perfect knowledge of GOD love and sanctity and joy the immortality of our bodies their beauty their brightness their strength and impassibility and in fine all the pieces of that infinite good the grandeur and excellency whereof we shall never distinctly comprehend untill the time that we possess it We shall then appear in this glory first because beside the first-fruits of it which we have JESUS CHRIST shall give us the fulness of it which we have not this undoubtedly the greatest and most illustrious part of His glory which now remaineth hidden in Him being then to be shed abroad upon us Secondly because the World which now despiseth and treads us under foot shall then see us in this glorious estate And as CHRIST our head shall be seen with astonishment by those that sometime pierced Him so they that now outrage His members shall then see them in their glory and be constrained to change their opinion and to acknowledge those for children of GOD and Saints of His whom in the present World they do deride and make by-words of Wisd â— 3 as saith the Book of Wisdome Thus you see Beloved Brethren what kind of life it is which JESUS CHRIST doth promise and communicate unto His faithful ones to wit the fruit of our faith and of that divine food which we have taken this morning the life of Angels the crown of Saints a super-eminent and eternal felicity in conjunction with a super-eminent and immortal glory It 's the rich treasury the living and inexhaustible spring of our consolation and sanctification Judge I beseech you what manner of persons they should be that have so high and so divine an hope and if it be not reasonable we should withdraw our thoughts and our affections from the earth to elevate them unto Heaven since it is there our life is and thence that we expect our chief happiness Christian are you not asham'd to long for earth you that have title for Heaven to labour for the meat that perisheth you that are destinated to a life which perisheth not to run after shadows you that in JESUS CHRIST have the substance of true and solid happiness How much more generous and constant are the children of this generation in their vanity Those of them that are of noble extraction and especially they that are brought up in hope of a Crown would not for any thing have a mechanick trade or foul themselves in sordid actions and even nations there are among whom they totally refrain from commerce with other men and account themselves defiled and profaned by having but touched a plebeian And you that are the issue of Heaven a child of the most High a brother of His Angels and an Heir of His kingdom you that are bred up with divine manna in the hope of an heavenly life and an immortal crown how have you the heart to grope in the mud and heap up dung to intermix with the miserablest bond-men of the earth and the profanest workers of iniquity A King's son heretofore refused to contend in the publick games because he saw no Kings do it Christian remember the dignity of your name separate your self from the exercises and divertisements of the people of the world Leave them the earth out of which they come and unto which they shall return Enter not into so ignoble and fordid a race in which you see none run but children of the earth the race of Mammon and the brood of vipers and serpents Purifie your hearts and your bodies let it never betide you to defile them with base and terrene either thoughts or actions Say not what shall we eat what shall we drink wherewithal shall we be clothed These are the thoughts and cares of bond-men These are the discourses of Pagans This is all they seek You that are Christians and whose life is hid in JESUS CHRIST seek His kingdom and His righteousness Let this be your ambition and all the passion of your souls Let this divine life and the glory wherewith it will one day crown you in the fight of Heaven and earth be night and day the object of your thoughts Take it away even at the present with an holy impatiency Begin betimes to live as you shall live eternally Let the contemplating of GOD let the love of His beauties let the meditating of His mysteries let the considering of and a conversing with His CHRIST be your employment and your refreshment in the present World
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
notable is the elogium he gives it in saying Covetousness which is idolatry For this title surpriseth us every one well knowing that idolatry and covetousness are to speak properly two different sins the first directly respecting religion and the service of the Deity when men adore a thing which is not the true GOD and render it those religious honours which belong to none but GOD whereas covetousness is a moral sin that consists in an excessive and immoderate adhesion to the goods of this world makes men get them and possess them amiss and contrary to the laws of justice and reason These two things therefore being so different why saith St. Paul that covetousness is idolatry Dear Brethren I answer that he was in no wise ignorant of this nor did he intend in this place to confound these two sins which in divers other places he does most expresly discriminate and distinguish as particularly there where making a list of the principal sinners that shall not inherit the kingdom of GOD he sets down the idolater and the covetous severally and each of them in his rank But aiming here in passing to brand and blast this vice for the giving of us a just horror at it that we might not account it as the greater part of men do a light matter and a lowness and weakness of spirit rather than a crime he qualifies it with the elogium of idolatry improperly I grant and figuratively but very fitly for the discovering of its venoum to us And it is not here alone that he hath done it He brands this vice after the same manner again in the Epistle to the Ephesians where speaking of the covetous he adds the very same thing and says who is an idolater You know saith he that no fornicator nor unclean person nor covetous who is an idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom of CHRIST and of GOD. Now this proposition that covetousnesse is idolatry may be pertinently resolved two manner of waies First by taking it as signifying simply that it is an abominable thing For inasmuch as there was nothing in all the horrors of Paganism that was more severely prohibited of GOD nor more hated or abhorred among the Jews than idolatry thence it comes that they gave this name to every thing which they would detest and I perceive that even to this day this form of expression is common among them and when they would signifie that a thing is abominable they frequently say It 's an idol or it is idolatry so that we need not wonder if St. Paul who followeth all the idioms and terms of the Jews language hath said here in a like sense that covetousnesse is idolatry to signifie that it 's an horrible and detestable vice We meet with a like expression or rather indeed the same in Samuel when the Prophet to shew Saul how great the horror was of the fault he had committed in not executing punctually the thing GOD had commanded him tells him 1 Sam. 15.23 that to resist an order of the LORD's is a sin of divination that is of witchcraft or magick and not to acquiesce in what He hath commanded is a sin of idols or images that is idolatry There you see by the names of the most abominable sins witchcraft and idolatry he signifies the horridnesse of disobeying the voice of GOD altogether as the Apostle in our Text expresseth the horridnesse of avarice I add in the second place that though covetousnesse be not properly and formally Idolatry yet it hath so much resemblance with it that there is scarce any other sin to which this name doth better agree The idolater looks on his idols with profound veneration so doth the covetous on his goods and coin The one shuts up his idols so the other doth his The one serves an image and the other gold and silver and when the idol is of either of these two metals as they not seldome are they both serve the self-same thing with this difference only that the idolater serves it under one form and one way figured the covetous under another The one offers incense and sacrifices to his idol the other immolates his heart and affections to his Add hereto that the covetous bears more love to the objects of his passion and renders them more service than he doth to GOD He puts his hope in gold and saith to fine gold Thou art my considence And if you thoroughly examine his life you will find that he serves none but Mammon Mammon is then his GOD after the same manner as the Apostle saith else-where that the holly is the GOD of voluptuous men whence follows that it cannot be denied but that he also is an idolater In fine there are two things here to be yet heeded The first is that under the names of these five vices fornication uncleannesse inordinate appetite evil concupiscence and covetousnesse the Apostle signifies not meerly the acts of these sins which are also commonly called by the same names but properly and precisely the internal habits of them as seated in the soul For it 's they properly that are the members of the old man the acts are but his effects and operations His meaning therefore is that we cut them up to the very root that we not only abstain from those vile actions unto which they sway such as they possesse but that we mortifie and extinguish them themselves to the end that these accursed sources or evil being once dried up our life may remain 〈◊〉 and clean from all the ordures and filth of them The other thing is that we must not fancy the Apostle meant to make here an exact enumeration of all the vices of the old man He gives us but a small scantling of them intending we should likewise mortifie all the rest as gluttony drunkennesse and the like For it would be no benefit to us to have cut off one of his members if we let him live in respect of others His life is our death and while he conserves it whole in any of his parts we cannot be in safety Let us labour therefore to extinguish it all Eradicate all its lusts represse all its stirrings and smother all its sentiments Let us make a mortal and irreconcilable war upon this whole brood of monsters Spare we not any one of them Let us exterminate them all as an Anathema Treating them as the ancient Israelites sometime did the accursed nations of Canaan and as the Psalmist would have the little children of Babilon treated Psal 137.9 desiring they might be dash'd against the stones It 's in this case only that cruelty is laudable and that a man may lay aside pity without blame He that hath pity on the members of his old man is cruel to himself to spare them is to destroy ones self and to conserve them is to betray our own salvation This then My Brethren is the mortification which the Apostle requireth of us Neither he nor
sixth To these properly doth the name of Odes or Songs belong It 's with these sacred layes of which the word of CHRIST affordeth us both the matter and the form that the Apostle would have us solace our selves St. James gives us order for it Jam. 5 13. Is any among you merry saith he and in repose of spirit let him sing Psalms The Apostle calleth all these sonnets spiritual both because of their author who is the holy Spirit and also for their matter which concerneth only divine and heavenly things the glory of GOD and our salvation not the vanities and passions and follies of men as carnal Poems do He adds with grace signifying by that expression the sweet and saving effect of these spiritual songs which do profit and refresh both together He would have us in the third place to sing from the heart that is not barely with the mouth as hypocrites but with the attention and affection of the heart In conclusion he intends that we sing unto the LORD that is unto the praise and glory of CHRIST who is ordinarily signified by that term the LORD when it is couched single as here it is This is the rule he gives us for this holy and spiritual melody a rule which Rome hath as little spared as the other which we have seen him prescribe about our being studious of the word of GOD in general For first She hath banished from the Church the faithful peoples singing and that so far as those that be of her communion do down-right declare that to sing the Psalms of David as we do is an huge scandalizing of Christians Strange Christianity which is scandalized at a singing that the Apostle commands a singing that celebrateth the glory of GOD a singing of what was endited by His Spirit composed by His Prophets and tendeth not but to the edification and consolation of faithful souls Certainly beside the authority of the Book of GOD it appeareth also by the writings of men that heretofore in the ancient Church the Christian people bore a part in the singing of Psalms and did it both in publick and in private Again for what our adversaries make their Clergie sing of what conscience can they say that they sing it with the heart since they that hear it and the greater part of them that sing it understand it not all their Anthems being in Latin a tongue long since dead and unknown to the people Consider too whether the pomp and the niceness and the curiosity of their singing and such a many of instruments as they mingle with it and all the other artifices of their musick be not more proper for the pleasing of the ear than the edifying of the spirit But dear Brethren let us lay â—side the defaults of others and mind our selves First bless we our good GOD for that He hath set up the word of His CHRIST again among us in its light and in its genuine use and acknowledging this grace of His from the bottom of our hearts improve His favour Let this word be the only governess of our hearts and lives Hear we its voice in publick consult it in private Let us have these divine Books in which the Holy Spirit hath consign'd its instructions Read them without scruple and without fear of finding ought that 's dangerous or venomous in them They are the Paradise of JESUS CHRIST in which the tree of life grows and whence flow the streams of sanctity of joy and of immortality but a Paradise where the old Serpent never entred where his breath and poison are unknown Fathers and Mothers instruct your children in this wholsome study Young ones addict your selves to it betimes Fill your memories out of this treasury of wisdom Men and women old and young rich and poor learned and unlearned receive ye all this Divine guest whom the Apostle hath now lodg'd at your house Let it dwell there as he hath ordered richly and abundantly in all wisdome If you receive and treat it with the respect it merits it will cure your souls of all their maladies it will inform your understandings of all heavenly truth and purge them of all the errors of earth and superstition It will fill your hearts with love to GOD and charity towards your neighbour and by the efficacy of its truth extinguish all those petty passions that tye you to the World It will comfort you in your troubles it will fortifie you in your weaknesses it will sustain you in your combats it will arm you against all sorts of enemies and guide you in all your waies It will sweeten your adversities and govern your prosperity and to comprise all in few words it will conduct you to the haven of eternal salvation notwithstanding all the storms of this wretched life Employ likewise this word of the LORD to those uses which the Apostle recommends unto you even to those mutual teachings and admonishings which you owe one another giving and receiving them as there is occasion with a sincere and truly Christian charity In fine possess the liberty he gives you of singing from the heart with grace unto the LORD Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs This sole Book of Psalms if ye learn it aright is able to make you for ever happy Oh GOD what a source of blessing and joy do they deprive themselves of who reject it or neglect it It 's a publick magazine of heavenly wisdom in which every one may find what is meet for him the ignorant whereby to be instructed the knowing whereon to be exercised the afflicted wherewith to comfort and the contented to recreate himself There are repentant tears for the guilty and songs of thanksgiving for the faithful preservatives against vice attractives and excitements to piety and lessons for all kind of Vertues And the wonder is that these so high so useful and so necessary things are all presented us there in the delicious sonnets of a graceful and a pleasing poetry as in so many vases of pearl and diamonds and emeralds to induce us to receive them the more easily Oh sage invention of our Great Master wherein we have together pleasure and profit refreshing and instruction of soul at once singing and learning what 's most necessary for us May Himself please to bless this Divine artifice by which He invites and allures us to Himself and so touch our hearts by the efficacy of His Spirit that as He draws us to Him with these holy cords of His sweetness and love we also on our side may freely and chearfully run after Him to the end that having faithfully followed Him in this World He may in the next lodge us with Himself in the Sanctuary of His Glory where bearing our part with the Angels we shall bless and glorifie Him eternally Amen THE FORTY SECOND SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER XVII Verse XVII And whatsoever ye do whether in word or in work do it all in the name of
gorgeousness the frowardness the obstinacy and the tongues of their wives and â—ay many other odious reproaches upon them Women on the contrary impute all this mischief to the husbands complaining some of their contempt and want of love others of their niggardliness towards them and profuseness other-waies Some declaim against their idleness and the little care they take of their affairs others against their excesses and compotations There are some that are angry at their speaking and others at their silence and in fine they forget not one ill treatment which they have received I know well that upon strict examination some fault would be found on each hand and that if cause appear to reprehend wives there would be no less to censure husbands But I had rather lay aside all this vexatious process and do conjure you Dear Brethren and Sisters in the name of GOD to do the like sparing one anothers honour consider what you are and what an union GOD hath call'd you to and each one for his part acknowledging your defects in the duty it requireth terminate all your complaints in a reciprocal pardon and forgetting all that is pass'd endeavour to procure to one another in the estate you are that peace and contentment which hitherto you have not had Do what the Apostle bids you and you shall find as much sweetness as heretofore you have tasted bitterness For as there is nothing more wretched than a marriage in which the wife hath no respect for her husband and the husband no love for his wife So neither is there any thing in the world more happy than a marriage in which the wife by an humble and respectful submission and the husband by a sincere and faithful love have their hearts and wills united in an holy concord As the first of these two conditions is an hell so the second is a very Paradise In fine My Brethren since JESUS CHRIST is the Spouse of all faithful souls you see what service and submission we are obliged to render Him May it please this Divine Spouse from that nuptial palace where he dwelleth to make us smell the odour of His mystical perfumes and to form our souls unto all the obedience the fidelity and servitude we owe him and govern us by His Spirit as He hath purchased us with His blood that after having here beneath sighed for Him we may one day eternally enjoy Him according to His promises and our hopes Amen THE FORTY FOURTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER XX XXI Verse XX. Children obey your parents in all things for this is pleasing to the LORD XXI Fathers provoke not your children lest they be discouraged DEAR Brethren Among all the mutual offices by which the society of men is conserved those incumbent on Children towards their parents and on parents towards their children are without doubt of the first rate and most necessary It 's upon them that all the rest do in some sort depend and they are in humane society what the foundation is in an edifice the foundation once demolished all the building goes to ground so the subjection of children and the superiority of parents once remov'd or unfixed the ruine of all other parts of society does necessarily follow For if a man neglect his children or misgovern them how will he duly and inhumanely treat servants or subjects or any other persons whomsoever Again if a child shake off the yoke of his Father and Mother how will he bear that of a Master or a Prince There is no likelyhood that the one or the other having fail'd in offices so sweet and natural toward persons that are so nearly in conjunction with them will ever rightly discharge any of those other which they owe to persons more remote and with whom they have much less union Whence appears the admirable wisdom of the Providence of GOD who for the forming of us unto the devoirs of love subjection and obedience which are necessary in the Civil or Ecclesiastique society we are to live in puts us at first into the bosom and under the conduct of our Fathers and Mothers that there as in a sweet and a commodious School we may timely learn the bending of our spirits unto love and respect for men and after this previous apprentiship find the yoke of those superiours under whom we are to live in Church or State less uneasie For one that hath been a good child in the house will without much trouble be a good subject in the State and likewise he that is a good Father will easily prove also a good Master a good Magistrate a good Pastor if GOD call him to either of those charges Wherefore S. Paul requires among the other qualifications of a Bishop or Pastor that he rule well his own house having his children insubjection with all reverence For saith he if a man know not how to order his own house 1 Tim 3.4.5 how shall he govern the Church of GOD These reciprocal duties therefore of parents and of children being of so great importance in the whole life of men it 's with good reason that our Apostle takes care to regulate them in the Text which we have read immediately after having in the precedent Verse formed those of Husband and Wife He speaks first to children according to the general order of beginning with the inferiours which he observes in all this part of his institution for reasons we pointed at in our last action Children saith he obey your Fathers and Mothers in all things for this is pleasing to the LORD Then he prescribes to Fathers also what pertains to them in these words Fathers provoke not your children lest they be discouraged These are the two heads we will treat of in the present action if GOD so please First the duty of children and Secondly that of Fathers As to the first of these we are to consider the Apostle's command contained in those words Children obey your Parents in all things and then the reason of this command which the Apostle annexeth when he saith For this is pleasing to the LORD He directeth the command to children and useth here in the original a term that signifyeth any person begotten of another his fruit his production a term that consequently comprehendeth all children of which soever sex that is both sons and daughters and of whatsoever degree that is grandsons in regard of their grandfathers as well as sons in regard of their fathers For the word Children according to the sense and authority both of Scripture and of the learned in the laws doth enclose the one and the other Let all those therefore to whom this title doth belong make account that to them is this injunction of the Apostles addressed Let not daughters object the weakness of their sex nor sons the strength and excellency of theirs to be dispenced with for the obedience they owe since the difference of their sexes doth not hinder but that they are
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
earth then to overcome the King of Kings your salvation is concerned The grace you crave of Him is the abolition of crimes that merit an eternal death and that which you sollicite with Him is not a piece of ground or an house or a small sum of money or some years of a temporal life or liberty It is Heaven and Eternity which you beg the treasury and palace of His CHRIST the peace and joy of his Spirit an immortal liberty an immortal life and glory It 's for this Beloved Brethren that we should be violent eager and obstinately importunate It 's for this we should spend days and nights in sollicitation at the feet of GOD and seize resolutely on Him and protest unto Him with a firm and fixed determination that we will not quit Him till He accord our desire No LORD thou shalt not escape me Either Thou must suffer day and night my importunities or I obtain what I petition for I will give thee no rest untill Thou hast fulfilled the desire of my heart I will have it from Thine hand or die begging it Such Christians is the perseverance which the Apostle commands us here and again elsewhere when he gives us order to pray without ceasing I have only two advertisements to add The first is that we may not understand these words as if he obliged us to quit all other exercise and lay aside the labour of the callings in which GOD hath set us and do nothing but pour out prayers as they say certain extravagant hereticks called the Eutiches that is the Prayers did sometime interpret it The Apostle who orders us here to pray without ceasing commands us also to labour and that with such necessity as he sentences that man not to eat who doth not labour These acts of our piety do not thwart one the other Prayer seasoneth and animateth labour hindereth it not That perseverance in it which is our duty is not continued praying without intermission but prayer frequently resumed and assiduously reiterated so as neither the trouble of waiting nor despair of obtaining nor any other consideration makes us give over the diligent practise of it The other advice we have to give you in reference to this subject is against superstition which regulateth prayers you know by the clock and scrupulously ties men up to the number and to the words of their orisons A Christian who hath his conversation in Heaven above time and the motions that make it measures his devotion by things themselves and makes his prayers not at the toll of a bell but at the signal of his need he lengthens or ends them not according to the number of beads in a chaplet but according to the movings of his heart Now after Perseverance in prayer the Apostle requires also of us vigilancy in it Persevere in prayer saith he watching in it with thanksgiving I freely yield that the faithful may steal away some hours from their repose and employ them in prayer provided it be done without superstition Nor do I deny but that the Prophets and the Apostles and the Christians of the primitive Church often did so rising at night and spending either in private or in their temples some hours in prayer and other exercises of piety Yet it seems to me that it is not of these watchings the Apostle speaketh here For there is another kind of Watch which we may call the Watch of the Soul and it 's only an attention of mind when we keep all our faculties in a good estate lively and working not asleep nor drown'd in idleness or in love of the world or in it's errors and vanities but awake and elevated unto GOD heeding him and intent upon His work looking unto CHRIST and for His day and expecting His salvation with earnestness and constancy Psal 130. â— It 's thus the soul of that Prophet watched who waited more attentively for GOD then the morning watchmen that waited with impatience for the break of day And hereto must be referred so many places of the New Testament that commanded us to to watch Watch and pray that ye enter not into tentation Watch Mat. 26.41 Mark 13.35 1 Thes 5.6 for you know not when the Master of the house will come Let us not sleep as do others but let us watch and be sober 1 Cor. 16.13 Rev. 3.2 16 15. Watch ye stand fast in the faith quit you like men be strong Be vigilant Blessed is he that watcheth And the like often elsewhere For as the Apostle somewhere elegantly says of a widow who spends her time in the pleasures of sin that she is dead while she liveth so may we say in like manner of a person that takes no thought of GOD nor of his service nor minds the occasions of doing good and holy works how active and busie soever he otherwise is in the affairs of the world that he sleeps while he is awake This mystical sleeping is an insensibility of soul for the things of GOD. The waking or watching opposite to it is the attentiveness the sensibility and the acting of the soul about the things of salvation 'T is true this kind of watching is necessary for us in all the parts of our lives and that no season no occasion should ever find a Christian asleep in this sense But as prayer is the excellentest of all our services so doth it particularly require of us this watching this attention I account therefore that it 's precisely this the Apostle means when he commands us to watch in prayer He would have us bring unto it a soul awakened not overwhelm'd in the cares and passions of the world not loaden and weighed down with thoughts of the flesh not spiritless and languid but stretch'd forth and lifted up to GOD not heedless of what it doth or heeding it by halves but minding the things it asks of Him and that CHRIST of his in whose name it presents it's requests to Him By which you may judge what account we are to make of most mens prayers that are pronounced by the mouth alone without any attention of heart for custom rather then out of any solid devotion Certainly since prayer ought to be made with watching thereunto it is evident that these peoples supplications are to say true dreamings and not prayers They are vain words like to those which a man that dotes utters sometimes in his sleep Those of Rome are so far from taking Christians off from this abuse that they precipitate them into it by that strange and extravagant law for their services which orders the performing them to be in a language that the people understand not Our hearts are so vain that they can hardly keep close to the things and words we understand I beseech you what attention can they have for those they understand not And how do they watch in praying that are so far from thinking upon what they say as they know not what is meant Pies