the honour to be elected of GOD our selves This as doth not compare us with others but with our selves and impoâ—ts as much as if S. Paul had said seeing that or since that you be elected of GOD containing in it this reasoning Such as have the honour to be elected of GOD his Saints and his Beloved ought to be cloathed with humility benignity and meekness Since then you have in JESUS CHRIST the honour to be the Elect the Saints and the Beloved of GOD judge if you 〈◊〉 not obliged to put on all these Vertues We use the word as to the same sense often in our common speech As for example when we say of a good man that he liv'd and dy'd religiously as a Christian that is so as was meet for that quality of Christian which he had and when we advise a young man of good rank to be â—onest in all his conversation as born of a good house and issu'd from a noble and a vertuous Father Of these three qualities which the Apostle here gives the faithful the first is that they are elected of GOD. The election of God is the choice He makes according to his good pleasure of certain persons to call them unto the knowledge of himself and unto the glory of his salvation And this term Election signifies sometimes the resolution he hath taken in his eternal counsel to choose and call them which the Scripture elsewhere calls Eph. 1.11 The determinate purpose of GOD sometimes the execution of this eternal determination when GOD doth in time touch the men of his good pleasure by the efficacy of his Word and Spirit converting them to the faith of his Gospel and separating them by this means from the rest of men who continue in the miserable estate of their nature through their impenitence and unbelief The Apostle in my opinion does comprehend both the one and the other of these two senses when he saith here That we are elected of GOD that is such as he hath chosen and effectively separated from the world according to his determinate purpose calling us unto himself to serve him according to the discipline of his Gospel Now that this quality doth oblige us to put on all the vertues which he recommends unto us in the words following is evident For this very thing is the aim and end of his Election as the Apostle elsewhere informs us when he saith That GOD hath elected us in CHRIST Eph. 1.4 that we might be holy and blameless before him in love And it 's that that Moses yerwhile represented to ancient Israel the type of the new Deut. 26.18 The Lord saith he hath set thee on high this day that is hath raised thee above other Nations by his election that thou might'st be to him a peculiar people and keep his commandments Whence appears how false their calumny is who accuse the doctrine of Election of favouring vice and impenitency If it were so what could have less of reason in it than the Apostles discourse who alledgeth our election to incite us unto the studious pursuance of holiness But it is quite otherwise than these men pretend As GOD's election is the source of sanctification and good works so the asserting and teaching of it is an establishing and a founding of them And they that make their boast of their being elected of GOD but mean time lead a licentious and profane life do mock GOD and men and shall infallibly perish in this false and vain error if they amend not For since GOD's election is never executed without converting a man and sanctifying him and it is not possible on the other hand that any one should know himself elected otherwise than by feeling the real execution of his election it is evidently rashness and a palpable error to imagine that one is elected except he be truly converted unto GOD and indu'd with piety and charity Another quality which the Apostle here gives us is that we are Saints For he is not of the opinion of Rome who calls none Saints but those whom she hath canonized Saint Paul acknowledgeth none for believers who are not Saints Accordingly you know that in the Creed the Church which is the body of all true Christians and not of the canonized only is called holy and the communion of Saints Indeed since there is not a Christian but hath been baptized into JESUS CHRIST and receiv'd the holy Ghost according to the Apostles saying elsewhere Rom. 8. That if any man have not the Spirit of CHRIST he is none of his How can he be a Christian who is not a Saint Seeing both Baptism and the Spirit of CHRIST do sanctifie all those to whom they are truly communicated Now that this quality of Saints or holy Ones doth also oblige us to all the vertues that the Apostle gives us in charge in the following Verses is as clear as the Sun at noon-day For what else is sanctity it self but a piety and an exquisite charity compleat in all its parts and adorned with every vertue Besides by sanctification we are dedicated and consecrated unto GOD so as henceforth we ought not to dispose of our selves but for his service and according to his will which is no other but that we live in all purity honesty and vertue And this is that the LORD signifieth when he so often chargeth his people to be holy You shall he holy unto me saith he for I am holy Lev. 11.44 20.26 and have separated you from other people to be mine The third quality the Apostle gives us here is That we are the Beloved of GOD that is to say those of all men whom he most loveth and dearly respecteth in his Son JESUS CHRIST Since then the love wherewith God honoureth us does oblige us to love him and that we cannot fail of this reciprocal love without herrible ingratitude it is evident that our being the beloved of GOD doth necessarily require of us that we put on all these vertues which the Apostle is about to give us in charge First because it is a necessary and infallible effect of the love we bear to GOD to do what he commands us and he commands us nothing else Joh. 14.15 but the exercising of every vertue If you love me saith he keep my commandments Secondly because true love transformeth him that loveth into the image of the thing loved so as GOD being charity justice and holiness it self it is not possible if we love him truly but that we put on all these divine Vertues Thus you see Believers that the honour we have to be elected of GOD Saints and Beloved doth most strictly oblige us to do what the Apostle commands us that is to embrace all the vertues he is about to represent unto us which he expresseth in one word bidding us put them on that is that we seat them in our hearts and shew them in our lives that we deck our souls with
His last breath with a spirit clear and a soul calm speaking to us of His approaching happiness and of the present grace of His LORD with so much efficacy as it stopped Your tears and in such manner forced the resentments of your grief that how just soever they were You had nevertheless a secret shame to make them appear in the presence and on the occasion of so vertuous a person as if Laments and Plaints should have in some sort offended His piety and dishonored the victory of his faith The same GOD that loosed Him so miraculously from earth to raise him up to heaven granted You to support the affection of His departure with a patience worthy Your vocation After so rude a blow He hath yet sustained You and conducted You to an honourable old age that few persons do attain And now I doubt not but Your principal consolation and the agitations of the present world and the infirmities of this age is the assured hope you have of arriving also one day at the port of that blessed immortality where contrary to the ordinary course of nature You have seen this dear Son enter before You. If in the holy exercises of Piety by which You daily prepare You for it the reading of these Sermons may find place and be of any use for Your consolation I shall therein have extream satisfaction at least I can well assure You it is one of my most ardent desires who pray GOD to preserve you with all your Family in perfect prosperity and remain inviolably From Paris April 1. 1648. SIR Your most humble and most obedient Servant DAILLE Imprimatur Tho. Tomkins Ex. AEd. Lambeth May 15. 1671. SERMONS ON THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS THE FIRST SERMON On the I II III IV V. VERSES Verse I. Paul an Apostle of JESVS CHRIST by the Will of GOD and the Brother Timothy II. To the Saints and faithful Brethren in CHRIST which are at Colosse Grace be unto you and Peace from GOD our Father and from the LORD JESVS CHRIST III. We give thanks for you unto GOD who is the Father of our LORD JESVS CHRIST praying alway for you IV. Having heard speak of your faith in JESVS CHRIST and of the love you have to all the Saints V. For the hope which is reserved in Heaven for you whereof you have heretofore heard by the Word of Truth to wit the Gospel THE Apostle St. Paul's Assertion is verified in the afflictions of the faithful by constant experience Rom. 8.27 and they ever work together for good to them that love GOD. Beside the excellent fruit which the afflicted themselves receive from them such as they sooner or later acknowledge with the Psalmist That it was good for them to have been afflicted Psal 119.71 they are also serviceable to the edification of others For as Roses the fairest and sweetest of Flowers do grow on a rough and thorny stock so from the afflictions of the faithful rugged and piercing to the flesh spring forth examples of their Vertue and instances of their Piety sweetest and most salubrious productions See what a rich store of benefits the tryals of Job and of David have yielded us It 's to them we owe that admirable Book of the Patience of the former and a good part of the Divine Hymns of the latter Had it not been for their afflictions we should not now enjoy after so many Ages that inestimable treasure of Instructions and Consolations What shall I say of the sufferings of St. Paul which did spead the Gospel all abroad and convert the world unto knowledge of the true GOD. His imprisonment at Rome alone under the Empire of Nero hath done the Church more good than the peace and prosperity of all the rest of the faithful that then were It gave reputation to the Gospel and made it gloriously enter into the stateliest Court in the world It inspired an heroick courage into Preachers of the truth It awakened the curiosity of some and inflamed the charity of others and filled all that great City with the Name and Odor of JESUS CHRIST Nor was it of use unto the Romans only It imparted its celestial fruit unto the remotest Regions and Generations For it was in this very confinement that this holy man wrote several of his Divine Epistles which we read with so much edification to this day as those to Philemon to Timothy to the Ephesians and that directed to the Philippians the Exposition whereof we last finished and the following to the Colossians which we have chosen to explain henceforth unto you if GOD permit Paul's Prison was a common receptacle whence have issued out those living Springs which water and rejoyce the City of GOD and will furnish it even to the end of the world with the streams it needs for its refreshment Having then already drawn from the one of these sweet Springs that Divine Liquor wherewith we have endeavoured according to the Ministry committed to us of GOD to irrorate the heavenly plants of your faith and love we now turn us my Brethren to the other a no less quick and plentiful one than the former Bring ye to it as the Lord requires souls thirsting for His grace and He will give you as He hath promised living water which shall quench your drougth for ever and become in each of you a Well springing up to eternal life The Church of the Colossians to whom this Epistle is addressed having been happily planted by Epaphras a faithful Minister of CHRIST the enemy failed not to sow forthwith his Tares within it by the hands of some Seducers these men would mingle Moses with our Saviour and together with the Gospel of the one retain and observe the Ceremonies of the other To make their error the more pleasing they painted it over with colours of Philosophy subtility of Discourse curiosity of Speculations and other such like Artifices Epaphras seeing the danger whereinto this prophane medly did cast the faith and salvation of his dear Colossians advertiseth St. Paul of it then Prisoner at Rome The Apostle to withdraw them from so pernicious an error taketh Pen in hand and writeth them this Letter wherein he sheweth them that in JESUS CHRIST alone is all the fulness of our salvation in such manner as that we should deeply injure Him to seek ought of it out of Him since in His Gospel we have abundantly wherewith to inform our Faith and form our manners without adding thereto either the shadows of Moses or the vanities of Philosophy At the entrance He saluteth them and congratulates them for the Communion they had with GOD in His Son Next he draweth them a lively pourtrait of the Lord JESUS wherein shine forth the dignity of His person and the inexhaustible abundance of His benefits Upon that he undertaketh the Seducers and refutes the unprofitable additions wherewith they sophisticated the simplicity of the Gospel Afterwards from dispute he
us This is the mysterie of the bread we there break and of the cup we there bless in remembrance and for the communicating of that sacred body which was broken for us and of that divine blood which was shed for the remission of our sins Let us carefully improve a doctrine so necessary and which is so diligently inculcated on us in the word and in the Sacraments of our LORD referring it to our edification and comfort Learn we from it first the horrour of sin a spot so black as could not be washed out but by the blood of JESUS CHRIST That remission of it might be given us it was necessary the Father should deliver up His dear Son to dye and the Son give His blood the preciousest jewel of the universe a thousand times more worth than heaven and earth and all the glory of them From this meditation conceive a just hatred against Sin since it is so abominable in the eyes of this Soveraign LORD on whose communion alone depends all your bliss shun it and pluck it out of your Consciences and your hearts As for sins already committed seek the remission of them in the blood of CHRIST Give your selves no rest till you have found it till you have obtained grace till it be exemplified in your souls by the hand and seal of the Holy Ghost Lay by the pretended satisfactions and merits of men Have no recourse but to the righteousness of JESUS CHRIST which alone is able to cover our shame and render us acceptable to GOD. But having once obtained pardon for the time passed return not into it for the future When sin shall present it self to you repell it couragiously opposing to all its temptations this holy and healthsome consideration It 's my Master 's the murtherer of the LORD of glory It 's the accursed Serpent that separated man from GOD that put enmity between Heaven and earth that sowed misery and death in the world and obliged the Father to deliver up His Son to the sufferings of the Cross GOD forbid I should take into my bosome so cruel so deadly an enemy But from this same source we may also draw unspeakable consolation against the gnawing guilt of sin and the troubles of Conscience For since it 's by the blood of the Son of GOD that we have been redeemed what cause is there to doubt but that our remission is assured The superstitious hath reason to be in continual affright since man in whom he puts his confidence is but vanity The propitiatory I present you Faithful soul is not the blood of a man or of an Angel creatures finite and incapable of sustaining the eternal burnings of the wrath of the Almighty It is the blood of GOD's own Son who also is Himself GOD blessed for ever It 's a blood of infinite value and truly capable of counter-poising and bearing down the infinite demerit of your crimes Come then sinner whoever you be Come with assurance How foul soever your transgessions be this blood will cleanse them away How ardent soever the displeasure of GOD against you be this blood will quench it Only bedew your soul with it Make an aspersion of it on your hearts with a lively faith and you shall no more need to fear the word of the executioner of the avenges of GOD. But Faithful Brethren having thus assured your Conscience by the meditation of this divine blood of our LORD admire ye also His infinite love which He so clearly sheweth us and confirmeth to us This King of Glory hath so loved you that when your sins could not be pardoned without the effusion of His blood He would dye upon a Cross rather than see you perish in Hell He poured out His blood to keep in yours and did undergo the curse of GOD that you might partake in His blessings O great and incomprehensible love the singular miracle of Heaven which ravishest men and Angels What should we fear henceforth since this great GOD hath so loved us Who shall condemn us since He is our surety Who shall accuse us since He is our Advocate He hath given us His own blood What can He any longer refuse to bestow on us He hath laid down His soul for us how much more will He grant us all other things that may be necessary for our salvation But as this thought doth comfort us so ought it to sanctifie us Of what Hells shall not we be worthy if we love not a LORD who hath so passionately loved us If we obey not His commandments who hath blotted out our sins If for this precious blood which He hath given us we do not render to Him ours and consecrate to His glory a life which He hath redeemed by the offering up of His own in sacrifice for our salvation And after an example of so ravishing goodness how can we be ill affected to any man Christians GOD hath forgiven you a thousand and a thousand most-enormous sins how have you the heart to deny your neighbour the pardon of one slight offence He hath given you His blood you that were His enemy How can you refuse a small almes to him that is your Brother and that upon the account both of nature and grace Let the goodness of the LORD JESUS mollifie the hardness of your heart let the vertue of His blood melt your bowels into sweetness into charity and into love both toward Him and towards His members Discharge you this very day at His table of all the bitter passions of your flesh Put off there pride hatred and envy and clothe you there with His humility and His gentleness Do him new homage and give Him oath to be never any others but His alone presenting your selves with deepest respect before this Throne of His grace Remember both at this time and ever after that blood by which He hath obtained Redemption for you that is the remission of your sins This blood is the peace of Heaven and of earth This blood hath brought us out of Hell and opened Paradise unto us It hath delivered us from death and given us life This blood hath blotted out the sentence of our curse that stood registred in the Law of GOD it hath stopped the mouth of our accusers and pacified our Judge This blood hath effected a renovation of the world It hath quickned the dead and animated the dust and changed our mortal flesh into a celestial and divine nature Dear Brethren GOD forbid we should tread under foot a thing so holy or account such precious blood profane or common Let us reverence it and receive it into our hearts with an ardent devotion And may it display its admirable efficacy in them causing the royal image of GOD even holiness and righteousness to flourish there to the glory of the LORD and our own consolation and salvation Amen THE VII SERMON COL I. Ver. XV. Vers XV. Who is the image of the invisible GOD the first-born of every
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
affection for the order and welfare and contentment of your neighbours if you take pleasure in their societie if you love the exercise of pietie and other vertues if you desire to conserve your souls in repose and your bodies in health obey the Apostle's command pull up and put away choler out of your hearts Suffer not so dangerous a guest to lodge within you the parent of quarels and debates the enemie of peace the cause of hostilities and murthers the pest of families and estates the storm of the soul the poison of the understanding the blinding of reason the abhorrence of GOD and men the ruine and hell of those whom it possesseth Never tell me that you cannot resist the tyrannie of your cholerick temper or that you did not begin first to be angry but it was an injury from your neighbour that kindled your wrath and you should pass for a man of no spirit if you suffered an affront without emotion and resentment These are but pretext and vain excuses which cannot hide the shame of your fault For as for nature it sorceth no man to wrath On the contrary it loveth sweetness and tranquility and it would be a strange thing that we could not be men without having the eagerness and the transports of animals If the Creator had given you choler He hath also given you flegm to temper it and reason to govern it and the word and Spirit of His Son to mortifie it And as for offences received from your neighbour the producing of them is no justification of your passion it 's a telling us the story and occasion of it Why then do you imagine that the LORD never forbids you to be angry but then only when no body gives you cause If your neighbour doth well to be angry with you why are you troubled at it And if he does ill why do you imitate him His having begun is so far from justifying you that I doubt this very thing will aggravate your crime For he that casts himself into an evil into which he saw another fall seems less excusable than he His example wherein you might have seen the hideousness of this passion should have kept you from it And as to the judgement of men if they be wise they will never impute it to you for faint-heartedness that you have overcome your own animositie since it 's in this properly that the highest point of magnanimitie consisteth it being clear that the weakest persons of all as children and such as resemble them are also ordinarily the most turbulent and cholerick and that true generositie is less subject to be moved and perturbed But if the opinion of the vicious or ignorant doth afright you sure you have not yet profited much in the School of CHRIST where the first lesson is to despise the fantasies and maxims of the world that we may rest in the laws and will of GOD. Lay me then aside all these nullities of excuse and sedulouslie form your selves unto that sweetness and benignitie which GOD requires Shun all occasions of anger and repell them when they occurr And for the winning of this ground upon your self and the being alwaies master of your own spirits descend into your selves and consider well the meannesse of your nature and its little worth that this body which makes so much noise is for substance nothing but dust and ashes that this breath which animates it is a spirit 't is true but full of ignorance and vanity and which is worse covered with crimes worthy of hell if GOD should judge you in rigour Discharge your selves of that vain opinion of your nobilitie of your riches of your power of your abilities which puffs you up so much For to say true all this is but a dream and a non-entity Such a consideration would be excellent to keep down the stirring and the boiling of your choler which ariseth most times from nothing but our presumption For esteeming our selves too highly it seems to us that no man can offend us but it is high treason and that a daring to attaque us is some kind of impietie But on the other hand let us also judge of our neighbours with more equitie and reason and think that in the sight of GOD they are as much or it may be more than we they are the workmanship of His hand the pourtraicts of His image the redeemed of His CHRIST and the denisons of His Paradise as well as we If we look'd upon our selves and them in this manner we should not be so easily or so vehemently troubled at the offences they do us Then again we should lift up our eyes higher and meditate the Providence of GOD and take all the outrages that are done us as chastisements or trials which beside us by His order It was this consideration that restrained David's anger on that just occasion for it which Shimci's insolency gave him It is the LORD said he who said unto him 2 Sam. 16.10 curse David A brave speech an holy declaration If we conform unto it all the occasions of perturbation which men give us will be so many exercises for us of patience and humility If they revile us we shall bless them If they outrage us we shall bear with them If they contemn us and abase us we shall put our selves yet lower and when they call us worthless people we shall add yea we are but dung and silth If they reproach us with poverty or ignorance we shall say in surplusage that we are but worms conceived and born in sin This would be a profiting by their outrages and a making other mens furie the subject of our vertue and matter of our praise It would be also of use for the forming of us unto meckness and patience to have still before our eyes the patience and meckness of a Moses of a David of a Jeremy of a St. Stephen and above all of our LORD and Saviour Who when He was reviled reviled not again Pet. 2.23 and when He suffered threatned not leaving us this glorious pattern that we might follow His steps We should too propose unto our selves the example of GOD Himself Who is infinite goodness and love Who beareth His creatures blaspheamings and instead of crushing them causeth His Sun to shine on them and watereth their lands with His rain inviting them so graciously to repentance Which would you rather be the disciples of this supreamest LORD and of His Son and of His Saints or of those miserable vassals of sin whom the evil spirit doth possess And this again should sweeten our resentments toward those that offend us even the remembring that it is Satan who inspires into them all the evil they say of us or do to us They are but his instruments Mean time we fasten upon them as if they were authors of the outrage doing in this particular as dogs who bite the stone that struck them and touch not the person that threw it 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
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
horrible is our corruptness The most adore their fetters and quit not the darkness of Egypt and horrours of Sodom but with regret To fetch them thence GOD must descend from Heaven and take them by the hand as yer-while Lot and his Children You know He doth deliver them from this black power of darkness when He dissipates their errour and ignorance causing His Sacred truth to shine into their hearts after so vive and so glorious a manner as they discern it notwithstanding all the illusions of Satan and the world Then the Empire which this impostor exercised over them vanisheth away They wonder how so weak clouds could hide from them so resplendent a light and this new flame or to say better this new Sun discovering to them the true countenance of things the false colours wherewith the Devil and the Flesh endeavour to disguise them have no more force upon them They then see as uncovered and nakedly the turpitude and horrour of idolatry of superstition and of Vice and on the other side clearly perceive the verity the beauty and the excellency of piety and sanctity This deliverance is absolutely necessary for having part in the inheritance of Saints unto which none is received who is not a child of light and hath not renounced the servitude of errour and of vice And I profess it is much to have shook off the yoke of darkness and be gone forth from its power Yet this is not all If the LORD should stop there we for all this should have no share in the divine glory of the heavenly Canaan It is of absolute necessity for admission there that we bear the marks of the Lamb and at our going out of darkness enter into His Holy light For this cause the Apostle after he had said that the Father hath delivered us from the power of darkness immediately addeth and translated us into the Kingdom of his well-beloved Son For though in effect these two benefits of GOD are inseparably joyned together yet notwithstanding they do constitute two different graces It is his goodness and not their nature that hath thus tyed them each to other Had not the counsel of His love otherwise ordered it might have come to pass that a man should be delivered from the power of darkness and yet not enter into the Kingdom of His Son but remain in such a liberty as Adam's was before he fell But now since no man hath remission of His sins without becoming a member of JESUS CHRIST by Faith and since all that have this honour are predestined by the good pleasure of the Father to be conformed to the image of their head and consequently to have part in His Kingdom and Glory there must of necessity be entring into his Kingdom or an eternal abiding under the power of darkness The Apostle by the Kingdom of the Son of GOD means that very thing which the Evangelists ordinarily call the Kingdom of Heaven that is the Church of our LORD JESVS CHRIST that blessed City builded by the ministry of the Apostles and Prophets upon the Son of GOD it 's only eternal and unmoveable foundation the state of the Messiah the new republique of GOD His royalty and priesthood It is very pertinently that he calleth it here the Kingdom of the Son of GOD because the inheritance of Saints being the matter in hand which none but a child of GOD can have part in this informeth us that we may not obtain this right and title but in the Kingdom of JESUS CHRIST alone since none but He the true and proper Son of GOD is able to convey divine adoption to us and it is for a like reason that He stileth Him the well-beloved Son of GOD even to the end we might confidently hope for all the grace and glory which the Father promiseth us inasmuch as we pertain to His wel-beloved Him in whom He is well-pleased whom He singularly affecteth and as perfectly as Himself His eternal delight and love Besides I doubt not but the Apostle had some aim to heighten the grace which the Father hath shewed us by this apt and clear opposing of the Kingdom of His well-beloved Son into which He hath transported us to that power of darkness the Empire of His enemy from which He hath delivered us GOD brought us into this blessed Kingdom when He gave us the faith of His Gospel the righteousness of His Son and the consolation of His Spirit signing us with the badges of His House and sealing us with His holy Baptism But the word transport or translate which the Apostle useth represents also the strength and vertue of this action by which GOD hath brought us into the Communion of His Son I acknowledge the operation of this grace of His is sweet and pleasant for it perswadeth it gaineth the heart it is accompanyed with the very great joy of him that receives it But withall it is potent and efficacious Nothing can resist it There is no rebellion nor hardness of heart but it subdueth Joh. 6.44 it draweth men to JESVS CHRIST as Himself expresseth it or as His Apostle saith here it translates them into His Kingdom This is that Beloved Brethren which we had to deliver you for the expositon of this Text. I wish that the same spirit which yerst indited it to the pen of the Apostle would please to engrave it in the lowest depth of our hearts with the point of a Diamond in uneffaceable Characters that we might have it day and night before our eyes that we might carefully peruse it and consult it in all the occurrences of our life This meditation would suffice to conserve in a constant and happy exercise of Christian piety and to guard us from all that disturbeth our sanctification or our comfort First it would enflame us with an ardent love of GOD and excite us to a sprightful and sincere acknowledgement of His benefits For what love what respects and what services do we not owe to this Soveraign LORD who hath vouchsafed to display so much mercy and goodness upon us who hath called us from that eternal death wherein we were sunk with the damned unto the possessing of the inheritance of His Saints Who hath made us meet to enter into the fruition of His light Who by a miracle of His power and wisdom hath plucked us from the yoke of the Devil hath delivered us from the unrighteous and murtherous power of darkness and to compleat His graces hath translated us into the blessed Kingdom of the Son of His dear love Who from brands of Hell that we were hath changed us into live and lightsome Starrs in His Firmament of dead doggs hath made us first-fruits of His Creatures and from slaves of Demons transformed us into Angels and from the accursed state of Satan raised us to the Sacred Fellowship of His Son to be henceforth His free-men His brethren and His members O love O goodness incomprehensible How have we
GOD is which we have by JESUS CHRIST It is Deliverance saith the Apostle The word he useth in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 particularly signifieth a deliverance effected by some ransom given for bringing the delivered out of the bast estate he was in and it is properly that which we call Redemption For a man may be delivered divers wayes either by being simply put out of the affliction he was in as when a master enfranchiseth his slave setting him at liberty of His good will or when a Creditor lets his Debtor out of prison forgiving him the debt or by exchange as when one prisoner of War goes for another or by forcible recovery as when Abraham delivered Lot by defeating his enemies and David his people that had been taken by the Amalekites The deliverance we have by JESUS CHRIST is not of this sort He hath procured it by the ransome He gave for us and it 's this that the word Redemption here used by the Apostle doth signifie But the same term informeth us also that the benefit which we have received of Him is not simply the gift of life It is a deliverance which brings us out of some misery GOD gave life and immortality to the Angels but He gave them no deliverance since they never were in sin or misery and before Adam's fall He promised Him life it 's true but not salvation and redemption because man was then in his integrity without sin and misery likewise The benefit we receive of Him by JESUS CHRIST is not simply life and immortality it is a deliverance a salvation a redemption that not only conferreth some good on us but taketh us out from sin and freeth us from misery The Apostle explains it us more particularly when he adds That this redemption which we have in JESVS CHRIST is the remission of sins True it is the word Redemption is general comprising under it deliverance from any evil whatsoever certain it is also that the number of our evils is great and that JESUS CHRIST hath delivered us not from one or two evils only but from all He hath delivered us from the ignorance into which we were naturally plunged He hath delivered us from the bondage of the Flesh the lusts whereof did exercise an horrible tyranny in our members He hath delivered us from that death which we were made subject unto and from the curse of the Eternal Father which we had deserved For which cause the Apostle elsewhere saith that JESUS CHRIST is made unto us not simply righteousness but also wisdom sanctification and redemption and in a multitude of places that He hath brought us out of darkness and delivered us from the tyrannous power of sin and death But though all this be very sure yet in this place he restraineth the Redemption we have in JESUS CHRIST to the remission of sins and that in my opinion for two reasons First because remission of sin is the first and the principal of His benefits the basis and foundation of all the rest which necessarily leads them on and without which it is not possible to reach any of them For sin as you know is expresly that which makes separation between GOD and us The cause why this most merciful and all-powerful Ruler of the world taketh from us the light of His knowledge and the communication of His goodness leaving us in the darkness of errour and in misery is neither hatred nor contempt nor disdain of His creatures It 's nothing but our Sin His justice and soveraign equity permitting Him not to crown with His blessings people that are criminal JESUS CHRIST therefore intervening and procuring for us the remission of our sins thereby bringeth us out of the ill case we were in and openeth the fountain of celestial good which was before shut up by Justice This obstacle being removed this sluice if I may so say opened Divine goodness recovering its natural course floweth forth upon us and poureth into us light peace holiness and life It is not then to exclude these other benefits of the Redemption which is by JESUS CHRIST that the Apostle defineth it hereby the remission of sins For it compriseth them all none having this remission but they have also upon it all the LORD 's other graces but to shew us the due order of all the parts of this deliverance of which remission of sin is the first and principal Secondly the Apostle doth this because the ransome which the word Redemption doth imply was not properly necessary save for obtaining the remission of sins Except for this there was no need that JESUS CHRIST should lay down His life for us For supposing that a pure and sinless creature should have lain in ignorance and misery and if you will even in death it self There would have been no necessity that the Son of God should have shed His blood or suffered death to bring it up thence It would have sufficed He had loved it His good will would have immediately moved His power to display it self in its behalf and fetch it out of its distress there being nothing to hinder this natural operation of His goodness and so the happiness of such a creature would have been simply a deliverance and not a redemption But forasmuch as we were sinners it was necessary for our recovery that JESUS CHRIST should make His soul an offering for sin and pay the ransome of our liberty Whence it follows that to speak properly and exactly there is nothing but the remission of sins that should be called redemption as the Apostle defineth it in this place the other deliverances which we obtain by our LORD being only fruits and consequents of the remission of sin This then is the grand atchievement of the Son of GOD the miracle of His goodness and love that He hath procured and obtained for us the remission of our sins This is our true redemption Without this redemption we should still be enemies of GOD. We should not have any part either in His grace or in His glory Be even what you can desire in other respects Have all the goods of the earth all perfections of body and mind Be Monark of the whole world Have if it were possible the lights of Angels and the riches of their knowledge If you have not the remission of your sins you are a bondman and a wretch a slave to Devils and vanity and death since true redemption is the remission of sins But as without it it is impossible to be otherwise than infinitly wretched so with it it is not possible to be otherwise than infinitely happy The repose of the conscience the illumination of the understanding the jewel of sanctification the Graces of the celestial spirit life and immortality do inseparably follow it Go in peace said the LORD JESUS to those whose sins He pardoned as if He had said thou hast nothing more to fear since thy sin is forgiven thee There is no
Creature DEar Brethren As the salvation of mankind the true end of the coming of our LORD JESUS CHRIST into the world did oblige Him to expiate sin and destroy the Dominion of Satan so the performing of these great works did require an infinite dignity and power in His person For as it was not possible He should give us eternal life without voiding our guilt and satisfying the justice of the Father and delivering us from the hold of Devils so it was alike impossible that He should perfect these effects without an infinite merit and a divine strength that is to say without being GOD none but a true GOD being capable of having an infinite either dignity or power As then the streams conduct us to their spring branches to their stock and root the house to the foundation that sustaineth it So the salvation which is of the LORD JESUS leadeth us to the acts by which He obtained it for us and from thence to the quality that was necessary in His person for the executing of those acts Salvation is the fruit of this tree of life The infinite merit of His cross is as the branch that bore this noble fruit and His almighty most holy and most divine person is the stock or root that did shoot forth this beautiful and blessed branch This order the Apostle observes here in the consideration of our LORD JESUS CHRIST He sets forth to us first His fruit that is our salvation or redemption the last end of His whole mediation Next He represents the means by which He acquired this salvation for us to wit the effusion of His blood for the remission of our sins from thence He now ascendeth to the Quality of His person which he magnificently describeth in the Text that you have heard saying that He is the image of the invisible GOD the first born of every creature forasmuch as by Him all things were created Wonder not Faithful Brethren that JESUS should give us life and eternity Us I say poor sinners that had deserved death and the curse of GOD. For He purchased remission of our sins by His blood and did by the sweet savour of His sacrifice perfectly appease the wrath of GOD which alone withstood our entring into His heavenly Kingdom Neither account it any more strange that this JESUS so infirm cloathed with frail flesh subject to all our sufferings should be able to offer so great and so precious a sacrifice to GOD. For how weak and despicable soever that form was under which He appeared here below He is nevertheless in reality the true Son of GOD His wisdom His word and His power the perfect pourtrait of His person His living and essential image the soveraign Lord and Creator of the Universe In this description of the dignity and excellency of the LORD JESUS the Apostle compares Him first with GOD the Father saying that He is the image of the invisible GOD. In the second place with the Creatures saying that He is the first-born of them and adds the reason of it in the two following Verses which is taken from His having made and established them all as their Creatour their preserver their last and highest end Afterwards He finally proposeth the relation He hath to the Church saying in the eighteenth verse that He is the Head thereof the beginning and the first-born from the dead having the first place in all things In these three points the soveraign dignity and excellency of the Saviour of the world is as you see comprised But because it would be difficult to explain them all three in one only action the richness and profoundness of the matter constraineth us to fix for this time on the two first and remit the remainder to another season We shall then have to handle in this exercise the two heads that are contained in the verse which we have read One that JESUS CHRIST is the image of the invisible GOD the other that He is the first-born of every creature The same LORD who shall be by His grace the subject of our discourse please to be the direction and light thereof too inspiring us with conceptions and expressions worthy of Him illuminating our understandings with the knowledge of His high and supereminent Majesty and enflâ—ming our hearts with a fervent love to Himself for the glory of His own great Name and our salvation As for the first Head the Apostle telleth us two things in it the one that JESVS CHRIST is the image of GOD the other that the GOD whose image JESVS CHRIST is is invisible For understanding aright how the LORD JESUS is the image of GOD we must observe at the entrance that the word image is of great extent signifying generally every thing that represents another so as things being very variously represented it comes to pass that there is great variety and difference of images Some are perfect which have in them an entire an exact and adequate resemblance of the subjects which they represent others are imperfect and express but some particular nay that too with some defect having not properly in them the same features and same essence which is in their original I place in this second rank all artificial images whether drawn by Painters or engraven or cut by Carvers or fashioned by Founders or woven by Embroiderers and workers of Tapistry which represent nothing but the colour the figure and the lineaments of men and animals and plants and such like subjects and to say true have nothing in them of their life and nature To this same order must be reduced that which Moses writeth that Adam was made after the image of GOD. It 's not to be thought he had such an essence as that of GOD is but this is said because the conditions of His nature had some resemblance of the properties of GOD namely in that He was endowed with intellect and will and had the dominion over animals and earthly creatures In the same manner must we take what St. Paul saith when comparing the two sexes of our nature 1 Cor. 11.7 he termeth the man the image and the glory of GOD whereas the woman is the glory of the man He calleth the man the image of God because of the advantage and superiority he hath over the woman having nothing above himself but GOD who is His head whereas man is the head of the woman because she was created of him and for him as the Apostle teacheth But beside these kind of images which represent their originals but imperfectly there are others that have a perfect resemblance of them Thus we call a Child the image of His Father a Prince the image of His Predecessour For a Son hath not meerly the shadow or the colour or the figure of his father he hath his nature his qualities and properties and if we may so say the whole fulness of his being a soul a body a life the same with those his Father hath A Prince
countrymen and also by the Gentiles He was beaten imprisoned scourged stoned He was in shipwracks on the Sea in dangers and deaths upon the Land He was brought to be at the mercy of robbers in desarts beset round in cities both with weapons of enemies and the ambushments of false friends He was reduced to nakedness to cold to hunger and thirst It 's this hard and terrible chain of labours and sufferings which he meaneth here when he saith Whereunto I also labour combating But Oh the deep humility of this holy Soul he immediately gives the glory of these merveilous exploits to the sole vertue and assistance of the LORD JESUS I labour and combat saith he according to His efficacy which worketh powerfully in me He exerciseth the like modesty elsewhere when having said that he had laboured abundantly more than they all he presently takes up himself and adds yet not I but the grace of GOD which is with me It is the invincible force of this grace of the LORD JESUS which he calleth here his efficacy and he saith it worketh powerfully in him or with power to signifie the admirable effects which it produced in him first in that it raised up in Him the light of knowledge the love of holiness charity towards the LORD's flock such prudence and wisdom as were necessary for the instruction and government of souls Secondly in that it endued him with a more than humane courage with an immoveable constancy and firmness both that he might not sink under the burden of such great and continual labour and that he might patiently and cheerfully bear the persecutions and tentations which were still let loose upon him the LORD making things tend to His glory and the advancement of his work which seemed so contrary thereto as He promised him elsewhere that His power should be made perfect in his infirmity Thirdly in accompanying the Apostles preaching with diverse miracles which ravished men and authorised his words Rom. 15.18 19 as he expresly testifies in another place I will not dare to speak of any of those things which CHRIST hath not wrought by me saith he to make the Gentiles obedient by word and work through mighty signs and wonders Lastly this Divine vertue of our Saviour did also magnificently appear in the success he gave to Pauls labour opening the hearts of those that heard him and causing his voice to enter into them notwithstanding all the impediments of nature with such a miraculous blessing that he made his Gospel to abound from Jerusalem and round about even to Illyricum subduing nations and converting them gloriously to the service of His Master It 's this that he represents here to the Colossians in these words even that he laboureth and combateth according to the efficacy of CHRIST which worketh powerfully in him And it excellently conduceth to his design which is to shew the truth of the Gospel he preached which shined forth clearly in those many miracles they being as seals by which the LORD confirmed it I confess now that this great example doth particularly reflect on such as GOD hath called to the sacred Ministry of His house and it sheweth them on one hand how painful their office is that it is a work as the Apostle faith otherwhere a work I say rather than a dignity 1 Tim. 3.1 2 Tim. 4.5 a labour and not a recreation For the discharging of it worthily they must toil and strive watch in all things endure afflictions and do the work of Evangelists And it teacheth them on the other hand that they must not recoil for those great difficulties but trust in the grace of CHRIST and expect from the sole efficaciousness of His assistance that light that strength that patience and constancy which is requisite for the finishing of so laborious a course since it is He alone who rendreth us meet for these things strengthning us in weakness comforting us in trouble encouraging us in difficulties susteining us under assaults and so conducting us that though we be nothing of our selves 2 Cor. 3.5 yet in Him we can do all things who maketh us able to be Ministers of the new Testament But though S. Pauls example do particularly respect Pastors yet it appertaineth also to all true Christians in general since there is no one of them but is also in some sort the LORD's servant hath of Him the managing of some of His Talents and is called to labour and combat Let us consider then all of us in common and joyntly make our improvement both of the preaching and of the labouring of this great Apostle He still at this day declares to us the same CHRIST whom he preached heretofore to all the nations of the world Though the Organs that sound it to you be incomparably weaker than his were yet it is his word that you hear the same word and the same CHRIST that yer-while converted the universe The same Paul whose voyce had then so much efficacy speaks yet to you daily He addresseth to you the same doctrine He sets before you the same wisdom He admonisheth and teacheth every man among you Do not abuse so great a blessing do not frustrate the labour of this holy man of it's true and just effect The end of His preaching is that you all may be perfect This is the mark to which he calls you all in common Say not to me that he speaks but to some only I admonish saith he and teach every man that I may render every man perfect in JESVS CHRIST Object not the employments which you have in the world nor the cares to which your family and your affairs do bind you up If they be incompatible with that perfection which the Apostle requires of you you must renounce them It 's an extreme folly to excuse ones self from being happy This ought to be the first and last of our cares and if we cannot attain it but by quitting of honours by losing of riches by retrenching our delights yea as the LORD saith by plucking out our own eyes and cutting off of our feet and our hands it is better to forego all this than keep it to be cast at our departure hence into the torment of eternal fire But these are vain and meer frivolous pretences to palliate our slackness If we have truly received JESUS CHRIST into our hearts neither a wife nor children nor a family nor an estate nor the honest and lawfull employments of the world will hinder you from being perfect The fear of GOD honest deportment plain-dealing and justice charity and beneficence and in a word the fanctity wherein our perfection consisteth is not incompatible with any of these things For I beseech you is it your business or your calling which obligeth you to offend GOD and injure men to pollute your body with the filth of infamous pleasures to defraud or to rob your neighbour to drown your whole life in luxury in debauches and in
The LORD is a true Divinity dwelling in a true Flesh and true Flesh dwelt in by a true Divinity There is a Divinity and an Humanity truly distinct the one of them from the other and each of them retaining its own beeing and proper qualifications but there is one only and the same Person who takes His Name sometimes from the one and sometimes from the other and sometimes jointly from them both For we call Him the Son of Mary and the Seed of David by reason of His Flesh The Everlasting GOD and the Word of the Father and the Lord of Glory by reason of His Divinity Immanuel that is to say GOD with us and GOD manifested in Flesh by reason of these two natures together I confess it is a mystery that surpasseth our comprehension and a wonder that hath no parallel But neither must we measure the verities of Religion by the Ell of our understandings especially when question is of GOD whose Nature Reason it self doth confess to be infinite and incomprehensible It sufficeth that the word of the LORD informeth us it is so And though our reason cannot discern the manner how yet it being once illuminated by Divine revelation it acknowledgeth a kind of necessity of it For presupposing what the Scripture doth discover and reason approve of the desert of sin and of the infinite punishment that is due to it as also of the inflexible constancy of Divine Justice which cannot let sin pass unpunished it evidently follows that man could not have been reconciled to GOD unless his Justice were satisfied nor his Justice have been satisfied without a Sacrifice of infinite worth and merit So as it being the office of CHRIST to reconcile men unto GOD it is clear that for the effecting of this great design he must offer to the Father a Sacrifice of infinite value and consequently be GOD since nothing can proceed from a finite subject but what is also finite and none is infinite but GOD alone It was necessary therefore that all the fulness of the Godhead should dwell bodily in our Mediator Not to speak of other emoluments which this admirable union of our Nature with the Divine in the Person of JESUS CHRIST doth afford us as the assurance it gives us of the infinite love of GOD and of our salvation the title it procureth us to the merits of our Saviour whom it hath made our Brother and consequently our selves capable of being his co-heirs the consolation it sheds into our hearts of his whom we serve having an infinite power and wisdom to defend us in our combats to strengthen us in our weaknesses to preserve us against all the assaults of Hell and the World and redeem us from death the last of our enemies it being evident that if we had but a meer man for a Saviour how holy and excellent soever he might be there would remain unto us still very great and just causes of diffidence and fear Therefore blessed for ever be the Father of our LORD blessed be his love and that great mercy which induced him to send us so excellent and admirable a Mediator as hath all the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily Let us receive him with faith and adore him with devotion and serve him with zeal Neither let his flesh be an offence to us It is very flesh I grant but the flesh of an Eternal GOD who under this Pavilion of his visible abasement of himself which the world otherwhile so insolently despised hath lodged all the glory of Heaven and all the fulness of the Divinity Nor let his Majesty and this fulness of the Godhead which dwelleth in him affright us He 's a great God I confess but a GOD manifested in flesh dwelling in our nature descending and humbled even to our degree and partaking of our flesh and our blood that he might bring us to himself Let us embrace with reverence that most sacred Religion which he hath brought us from Heaven And indeed iâ— the World hath followed and held fast and still in divers places doth with so much earnestness follow and hold Religions invented and erected by vain men who were full of ignorance and error what respect do we not owe to this same one that hath been given us by the hand and mouth of a person in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead Moses was but GOD's Servant and you see what respect the ancient people bore him and with what severity all disobediences and rebellions against his Ordinances were punish'd and how that poor Nation doth still at this day in vain adore the Sepulcher and Reliques of the Law which dyed and was abrogated long ago What penalties then must we expect if we despise the Doctrine of the Son who is eternally blessed with the Father Heb. 2.3 This great salvation as the Apostle elsewhere calls it which began to be declared first by the LORD All other Disciplines are perished or will in time perish Even that of Moses's did wax old and in the end was abolished But the Institutions of CHRIST shall remain for ever all-holy and all-perfect immutable and unalterable nor do they need any reformation or addition or amplification After the LORD we do not at all look for any other new Teacher to come into the world Moses promis'd another Prophet after his death to the people of GOD. JESUS CHRIST the Prophet so promised may have no Successor He doth not promise us any but only threatens us with divers seducers that would usurp His Name and counterfeit his Voice and put on sheeps cloathing to debauch his Disciples Whereupon we ought to take all those for suspicious that pretend to add any thing whatever to his sacred doctrine Besides our LORD and Saviour's own quality doth oblige us to content our selves with him and give no ear to any other For in him saith the Apostle dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily Seeing he hath fulness the man can want nothing that possesseth him according to what S. John saith He that hath the Son hath life that is eternal salvation which is all that we desire This short sentence of the Apostle's is enough to secure us against the artifices of all seducers if they set before us the delicacies and subtilities of Philosophy colouring their fond imaginations with a vain semblance of wisdom let us arm our selves with this consideration That we have in CHRIST JESUS all the true wisdom that is since in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead If any man offer us ancient traditions let us remember that the Authors of them were but men who how great and holy soever they may be are all liable to error whereas the Gospel which we do embrace is his doctrine in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily and by consequence pure and divine verity As for those Ancients and those Bishops and Pontiffs whose names and authority you our Adversaries do urge
me with I know not who they were or to say better I know well that they were men subject to failing so as neither you nor I can have any firm and certain assurance that their assertions are true But for this JESUS with whose Gospel I content me we all know that he was the Son of GOD in whom wisdom and truth do dwell bodily with all the fulness of the Deity Moses himself must be silent when the LORD JESUS doth appear as the Starrs do withdraw their light when the Sun shews abroad his The one's Law is no longer considerable when the other's Gospel is risen In fine this sentence of the Apostle's doth suffice to overturn not only all the traditions of men in gross and in general but even each of them singly and in particular For example we are press'd to serve and invocate Angels and Saints departed I will not for the present alledg that GOD whose voice is the rule of my Faith hath given no command about it I will not say that Religious worship doth not belong to any Creature I will not enquire whether Saints do heaâ— from Heaven where they are the prayers that are directed to them on the earthâ— nor whether being finite and created as they are they do behold the motions of our hearts I will only demand of our Adversaries Why they would have us serve and invocate Saints To the end say they that we may gain their favour and their intercession with the Father But poor men have we not in JESUS CHRIST all the grace and favour that we need And though there were nothing else in the matter would it not be great imprudence for us to have recourse to others since we have him near us in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Deity They extol unto us their merits and their satisfactions and the indulgences of their Popes I enter not upon a strict examination of these things nor do I make enquiry for the present whether they be merits and satisfactions and indulgences in reality or no. Though they were what those men pretend they be yet it is clear that they are useless to us since we find in this JESUS CHRIST who sufficeth us all the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him even bodily If you have need of mercy of grace of consolation of righteousness of merit of assistance of life none of these good things are wanting in him in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Deity And I am well assured you shall find no degree of them any other where either in Heaven or Earth But though some drop of them might be elsewhere met with yet it is certain and your selves will not deny it that they are not to be had either in Saints or in Angels either so undoubtedly or so abundantly as in JESUS CHRIST Why then while I have so rich a treasure in my hands would you have me go a begging other-where It is sufficient for me to be saved Since the fulness of things necessary for my salvation dwelleth in JESUS CHRIST I will content my self with having recourse to him alone with sixing my trust and my love on him and with addressing my services and supplications unto him nor will I be so unadvis'd as to lose or at least hazzard my time and my devotions in directing them to others which I am sure I may successfully apply unto him Dear Brethren Let us hold to this LORD alone Let us not divide our piety between him and any other Let him alone have our whole hearts and all our desires since he alone hath all that fulness which is necessary to make us happy He is the true Fountain of living water let us not draw any other where We have no need of Cisterns This Divine Rock that followeth the Camp of his own Israel hath wherewithal to satisfie all his people plentifully He wanteth nothing who hath fulness Only let us bring him souls hungring after his benefits and thirsting for his righteousness hearts panting after the pleasures of his Sanctuary and braying after him as the Hart after the brooks of water Let us serve him constantly and keep faithfully the holy discipline he hath given us in a continual exercise of piety and charity This is all that he demands of us for the love he hath born us for the favours he hath done us and for the glory which he promiseth us Let us not deny him I beseech you so just a thing Let us do what he requireth us and he will liberally give what we ask of him He will through his great goodness communicate this Divine fulness to us which dwells in himself that being justified by his merit cleared by his light upheld by his power enriched by his treasures quickned by his spirit and fed with his abundance we may one day have part in his Crowns and in his Glory after the petty conflicts and slight trials of this life to be made eternally happy in him Amen The Twenty-second SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER X XI Ver. X. And ye are made compleat in Him who is the head of all principality and power XI In whom also you are circumcised with a circumcision made without hand by the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh to wit by the circumcision of CHRIST DEar Brethren With excellent reason said our LORD and Saviour when he would magnifie the love of GOD towards Mankind that he so loved the world as he gave his only Son John 3.16 that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life For this donation of his CHRIST which he hath made us is without contradiction the greatest and most admirable evidence of his love that he could give us I confess that this great Frame which he freely bestowed on us at the first Creation this World roof'd with those stately Heavens that environ us enlightned by those brave Luminaries that roll about incessantly over us and filled with an infinite variety of good things was a choice sign of a wonderful bounty and love and that the Psalmist had reason to cry out as ravish'd with the consideration of it What is mortal man Psal 8.5 6 7. that thou hast remembrance of him and the son of man that thou visitest him For thou hast made him little less than the Angels and hast crowned him with glory and honour Thou hast made him ruler over the works of thy hands Thou hast set all things under his feet Yet it must be acknowledged that all this liberality of GOD's to us-ward which consider'd in its self is so great and so ravishing is a small matter in comparison of the ineffable and incomprehensible love which he hath shewed in giving us his CHRIST whether you compare the gifts themselves one with the other or do consider the fruit which they both yeeld For the first Whereas the World is a kind of Magazine of the riches of Nature JESUS CHRIST is the Treasury of
Burial is nothing else but a consequent of death It 's the sad and dismal state to which it reduceth men ever since they became guilty that is to say it makes up a part of the punishment of sin As indeed it 's a hideous thing and full of horror to see so noble and excellent a Creature in whom the Image of GOD did shine forth and who had been formed for immortal glory to be brought down to the grave under the power of Worms and putrefaction JESUS CHRIST therefore having undergone this ignominious Infirmity for us and for our Salvation that he might leave none of our penalties unsatisfied for it 's evident that when he was buried we were buried in him and with him since it was properly for us that he did descend into the Sepulcher He bore us upon the Cross He bore us in the grave We all were in him forasmuch as he in all this work acted but for us We did and suffered these things since we are the cause that he did and suffered them We were buried in him forasmuch as His being buried hath discharged this part of our punishment and so changed the nature of our graves that instead of being prisons and places of execution they are now so many beds and dormitories wherein our bodies do repose until the resurrection Thus his burial hath freed ours from the curse which is naturally upon it and this benefit makes up a part of that justification which he hath merited for us it comprehending an exemption from all the penalties that are due to our sins But it is not in this sense that the Apostle saith we have been buried with JESUS CHRIST For he speaks here of the first part of our sanctification which is nothing else but the mortifying of the body of sin or old man in us and its burial that is the bringing it to nought It 's therefore properly in this respect S. Paul says that we have been buried with JESUS CHRIST even in as much as by the virtue of his death and burial our old man hath been destroy'd and suffer'd a death and burial semblable and analogical to JESUS CHRIST's For as his flesh after it was depriv'd of life was laid in a grave in like manner the old man of true believers having been stain is interred and brought to nought And as the LORD JESUS left in the Sepulcher his Funeral linnen clothes together with all the infirmity and mortality he had and came forth vested with a nature and a life fully refined from all that weakness of the first Adam which appeared in him during the days of his flesh even so the faithful do put off for ever that body of sin wherewith their first Parent had enwrapped them and leave it in their mystical Sepulcher to be resum'd no more but that they may henceforth lead a life free and exempt from all its filthiness and turpitude Lastly As the burial of our Saviour was properly but a progression and continuation of his death so likewise that of our old man is but a prosecuting of his destruction 't is the estate this puts him in and under it he abides for ever without rising any more S. Paul does else where clearly shew us that it is thus we must understand his words as when he saith in the sixth to the Romans that we are buried with CHRIST by baptism into his death Rom. 6.4 5. that as he was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father so we should likewise walk in newness of life and immediately after he saith that we have been made one self-same plant with him by the conformity of his death and resurrection To which must be also added that it is in him and with him we have been buried in this sort for that in his death and burial the principles and causes of ours were contained His death hath destroyed our old man and his burial hath interred him it being evident that if our LORD had not suffered both the one and the other for our salvation sin would still live and reign in us For it is the love of GOD and his peace and the hope of glory the true effect of our Saviour's death and burial that gives the deaths-wound to our old man and that doth abolish and bury his whole life See then how we are buried with him not that to speak properly our bodies do really enter into the grave in Joseph of Arimathea's garden where his abode three days away with so childish a conceit but for that the virtue of his death and holy Sepulcher doth derive into us an image and a copy of his burial destroying and burying our old man by his efficacy and bringing on him a mystical death and burial conform to his own real and mystical one This now which the Apostle addeth that we are also risen again together with him must also be understood after the same manner As our death and burial with him is mystical and spiritual so is likewise our resurrection these words signifying no other thing but that he by the virtue of his resurrection doth work and produce one in us which hath resemblance and analogy with his own And this resurrection of the faithful in consequence and by the efficacy of JESUS CHRIST's is their being renewed unto an holy spiritual and Evangelical life For even as the LORD having put off on the Cross and left in the grave that earthy infirm and natural life which he had led here below during the days of his flesh did put on a new one that was glorious spiritual and immortal rising from the grave a man heavenly and living to eternity by the sole strength of a quickning spirit so likewise all his true members having quitted their old man as destroyed and abolished by the virtue of his death do put on the new which is formed in righteousness and holiness and instead of that vile and wretched life which they led aforetime in the turpitude and fifth of sin they take up another wholly new one which is quickned by the Spirit from on high upheld by his power and shineth all over with the glorious lights of his sanctity charity and purity But besides this conform â—y between the new nature which we receive in JESUS CHRIST and that same which he put on at his coming forth of the grave we are said to rise again with him because it is the virtue of his resurrection that produceth all this change in us His resurrection is the cause of ours without it we should lye dead still and in bondage to sin This will appear if you afford ever so little attention to consider it For that which formeth the new man in us and gives us the courage to renounce the world that we may live pure and holy is as every one knows the perswasion of the love of GOD and of the remission of our sins and the hope of blissful and glorious immortality Now it is the
that supposing a man be perfectly cured of vicious habits and inclinations yet would he nevertheless be faulty by reason of his fore-passed sins and consequently liable upon this account unto the curse with which and the terrors that precede it true life is so incompatible that it is not imaginable a man in such a state could ever resolve to serve GOD freely and sincerely Therefore GOD that he may throughly quicken us doth not only deliver us from the tyranny of vice and of the flesh by that Princely Spirit which he poureth into our inward parts but moreover pardoneth us all the sins whereof we are guilty and it seems in very deed if we do accurately observe the moments of his action in us that it 's there he does begin first remitting our former offences to the end that the sense of this goodness of His may cause us to love him and encline us to obey him and conform our selves with all our might unto his holy will The Apostle attributeth unto this remission two remarkable qualities One that GOD forgiveth us all our offences that is doth not impute to us any of our sins either in whole or in part but treateth us as if we had committed none at all Another is that he doth it freely and of meer grace for so doth the word giving used here in the Original properly signifie as our Translation hath well express'd by rendring He hath freely forgiven us The Scripture tells us not of any other kind of pardon For as to that which our Adversaries do assert to wit whereby the fault is remitted but the punishment exacted either in whole or in part or is bought out with the payment of our own satisfactions or the satisfactions of others it's a figment of their own Schools of which the Holy Ghost says nothing any where but represents unto us all that remission which GOD gives the faithful either at the beginning or in the progress of their regeneration as an entire pardon and purely gratuitous As for that satisfaction by which our LORD and Saviour obtained it for us it is so far from any way diminishing that it does infinitely exalt the bounty of GOD towards us since that he so loved us as that he might pardon our faults with the consent of his Justice he would have his only Son to shed his precious blood for the contenting thereof This is that we had to deliver upon this Text of the Apostle's Dear Brethren Let us hold fast what it hath taught us of the condition that all men are naturally in before GOD calleth them to his grace Let not their outward appearance deceive you nor the pleasures of their flesh nor the splendor of their pretended virtues either civil or moral All this is but a false image of life covering a carkass that 's stinking and abominable before GOD. Make account that they are dead and that if they walk it is not a true principle of life but sin the poyson of life which doth animate them and set them on working The issue will one day clear it to us all when the just judgment of GOD having stript them of that fallacious disguise which now hideth the hideousness of their nature shall shew it before Heaven and Earth and make us plainly see that they were but Sepulchers whited without and full of filth and infection within and cast them thereupon into that wretched and eternal death which is prepared for them with the Devil and his Angels Bless we GOD who hath deliver'd us from this perdition by his great mercy and hate we sin and the corruption of the flesh which had involv'd us in it Look we on them as pests and poysons that destroy our life and reckon we that we have liv'd no more time than what hath been exempted from our serving of them You deceive your self Worldling who count the days of your unclean pleasures or your vain honours the best part of your life To say plainly it was the time of your being dead and not of your being alive After so many years as you have tumbled up and down the earth you have not yet liv'd a moment You have all along been in a state of death And they that write upon your Tombs that you liv'd so many years and died such a day do grosly err You did not live when you offended GOD and your Neighbour or lost your time in the filth of your infamous delights And on the day that you shall quit the earth you will not cease to live for to say true you never liv'd but from one kind of death you will pass into another from the death of sin to a death of torment Christians if you love life and hate horror at death renounce sin and mortifie your flesh You cannot live except it dye Put in exercise that noble life which the LORD hath given you in his Son Act according to the Principles which he hath put into you by his Spirit and lay forth continually in good and holy works the Graces wherewith he hath vested you Faithfully love and serve him Let your minds meditate on nothing beside him your hearts desire none but him your tongues speak only of him Let the contemplation of the wonders of his love and the hopes of his glory be the whole food of your souls Respect those men in whom you see his Image shine Affect them and serve them for his sake looking upon their lives their estates their honour their bodies and souls as sacred and inviolable things Endeavour to enrich them by communicating of your prosperities unto them Offend no man Do good to all Let your charity and your innocence be conspicuous in the sight of GOD and Man Faithful Brethren This is that life truly worthy to be called life which GOD doth reward for the present with a joy and contentment of Conscience that 's a thousand times more sweet and savoury than any of the vain delights of the world and which he will crown one day with that glorious Immortality he hath promised It 's for this that he hath vouchsafed to forgive us freely all our offences all those so many horrible Crimes which had merited Hell-fire and is still ready to pardon all the sins we have committed since This so great and admirable loving-kindness of his tendeth only to withdraw us from sin and oblige us to love and revere so good a GOD. It 's for the self-same end that he hath raised up his Son from the dead and enliven'd us with him giving us faith hope and charity the principles of a new life even that henceforth renouncing sin and the flesh and turning our hearts towards Heaven where our treasure and our glory is we might live soberly righteously and godly in the present world looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great GOD and Saviour JESUS CHRIST Amen The Twenty-fifth SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER XIV Ver. xiv Having effaced the obligation
the LORD JESUS giving thanks by Him unto our GOD and Father DEAR Brethren The love that the LORD JESUS hath born us is so great and the benefits He hath conferr'd upon us are so various and so precious that we are evidently obliged to give our selves entirely to Him and we cannot substract from Him without ingratitude any part of what we are or have He hath laid down His life for us It is just therefore that we again do consecrate ours unto Him He hath redeemed us at the price of His blood and by this admirable ransom deliver'd from death and hell not only our Souls but also our Bodies and our whole Nature We are therefore wholly His and have no more any other Master but Him neither is there any justice in the world but will adjudge Him the propriety and possession of what costeth Him so dear But though of right we be his Vassals yet it hath pleas'd His love that we should belong to Him under another much more glorious title For He hath made us His brethren having obtained of His Father that He should adopt us for His children and accumulated this grace with all the highest favours that creatures can be exalted to I mean He hath made us partakers of His inheritance and communicated to us His Nature and His Spirit and crowned us with His immortality and with His glory Though he had not shed His Blood for us as He did who seeth not but that this His great and divine liberality should have purchas'd Him all the life and being and motion we can have and that to divert any part of it from His service would be a robbing of Him and a bereaving Him with abominable Sacriledge of a thing belonging to Him so legitimatly and for many so just and weighty reasons If we be not the most unjust and ingrateful persons in the world we ought all to have such sentiments and consequently look upon our nature and our life as things no longer ours but JESUS CHRIST's and dispose of them not after our own phansie and for our own interest but at His pleasure and for His glory And as you see that the servants of a Prince above all those whom he hath particularly obliged and favoured do set up his arms through all their houses and adorn their Halls and Chambers with his Picture and have his praises alwayes in their mouth and fill up their whole life with his name and glory so should we do to JESUS CHRIST and with so much the more zeal for that He is a LORD infinitely more rich more clement more liberal and more beneficent than any Monarch of the Earth Let our Souls and Bodies therefore bear His badges let His glory appear exalted in all our actions let the words of our mouths be dedicated to Him and our whole lives full of His Name breathing throughout nothing but His honour and service without ever swerving from His Will from His interests This Beloved Brethren is the Lesson which the Apostle S. Paul now gives us in the words that you have heard And whatever ye do saith he whether in word or work do it all in the name of the LORD JESVS giving thanks by Him unto our GOD and Father By these words he concludeth that excellent exhortation which he makes to all Christians in general of what sex or age or condition soever He began it at the first Verse of this Chapter and continues it on to our Text pointing out in it briefly but divinely as you have heard in the precedent exercises our principal duties on one hand the mortifying of the flesh with its lusts as fornication covetousness wrath and the like on the other hand the studying and exercising of all Christian vertues as humility kindness patience gentleness charity and peace To all these he addeth our knowing and continual meditating of the Word of GOD with Psalms and spiritual Hymns And here it was we made stay in our last action upon this Subject Now that he might not stand to treat severally of all a Christians other duties which would be prolix and even infinite and a Discourse of too great extent for an Epistle before he passeth to that particular exhortation which he addresseth in the following Verses to some certain ranks of believers as to Married persons to Fathers to Children to Servants and Masters he closeth up his first matter with the precept he here gives us A precept verily excellent and well worthy to Crown his exhortation since it comprehends in few words all the duties of a Christian both those which the Apostle hath expresly pointed at and those which his design of brevity caused him to pass over in silence without speaking of them by name To the end we may give you an exposition of it we will endeavour by the grace of our LORD to explain one after another the two parts that offer themselves in it First that whatever we do either in word or work we do it all in the name of the LORD JESVS Secondly that we give thanks by Him to our GOD and Father When the Apostle pronounceth that all we do in work or word be done in the name of the LORD JESVS he clearly gives Him our whole life For these two sorts of things which he subjecteth unto Him words and works do comprehend all the other parts of our life it being evident that nothing issues from us but what may be referred to the one or the other of these two kinds They are either words or works Words are the fruits of our mouths works are the effects or actions of our other parts and faculties I acknowledge that beside this our spirit also does act within us when it knows or considers things and desireth or rejecteth them But besides that these internal actions might be put into the rank of our works by extending the word a little beyond its ordinary signification as in effect some interpreters do give it such a meaning here beside this I say it is evident that most of the conceptions and affections and resolutions of the Soul do refer to words and external works as being the principles and motives of them For it is not possible that our words and works should be in the name of our LORD and Saviour except our understandings and wills do so address them and it 's properly this action of the Soul the Apostle signifies when he orders that we do in the name of CHRIST all we do The tongue indeed pronounceth the words and the hands and other parts of our bodies do execute those actions of ours which are called works But it 's the Spirit that moves them all and that directeth and guideth on their functions to that end or design it hath proposed to its self and draws them from such motives as it hath conceiv'd and form'd within its self And it is properly upon this that the difference of mens actions doth depend It 's this Character that gives them
he never setting about them but when he may do them in the name of CHRIST For though the nature of them be indifferent the usage of them is not so but must be governed by the good and the evil that may thence redound either to or against the glory of GOD and the edification of men as the Apostle sayes elsewhere All things are lawful for me but all things are not expedient All things are lawful for me but all things edifie not Whence you see 1 Cor. â—0 2â— how vain the pretext of those is who excuse the excess of their habits of their tables and of their houses by the liberty which they pretend the LORD hath left them to clothe and feed and lodge themselves as they think good alledging that He hath not forbidden them Velvet or Silks or Gold or Silver or precious Stones or Tapistry or any sort of Furniture nor excluded from their Tables any kind of Meats or Services they being taken with thanksgiving I grant the use of these things to speak in general is free they all being created of GOD for man Yet this hinders not but each of you ought to observe certain rules about them and this one in particular namely that ye consider whether the thing be such as ye may do it in the name of JESUS CHRIST whether the money you waste in it might not be better employed in the service of His poor or of His Sanctuary whether your making men believe that you are vain glorious or intemperate or voluptuous by clothing or lodging or treating your selves more richly and more magnificently than beseems your condition whether this opinion I say which you give your Neighbours of you does not scandalize them and be not prejudicial unto the name and interests of our Saviour Hence again appears how inexcusable they are that marry with persons of a contrary Religion I confess that Marriage is honourable and that it is not prohibited to any But this action as well as all a Christians others must be done in the name of the LORD JESVS 1 Cor. 7.9 and so much the rather for that it is more important and continues as long as our lives Wherefore the Apostle doth expresly modifie the liberty he gives the believing widow by this exception She is at liberty saith he to marry again only so as it be in the LORD Now judge if it be a marrying in the LORD when you make alliance with a person allienate from your communion who will be a snare to pervert you from it will pluck the name of CHRIST out of your house and consecrate your blood to error and be so far from helping you in the exercises of your piety that the person will disturb them In fine this saying of the Apostle's shews us also what we are to think of Dances and Balls and such other vain pomps of the world If you can truly say that it is in the name of CHRIST you Masque and Dance I will accord that you fail not of your duty in it But if it be clear and manifestly known as it is that the LORD JESUS hath no part in these follies that in them His name is blasphem'd rather than glorified that His Spirit breaths not in them but indeed the Spirit of Satan and the world that scandal is given in them but no edification received confess it a thing contrary to your duty Add not impudence to guilt acknowledge if you be a Christian that it 's a violation of the Apostle's order to participate in such things which neither are nor can be done in the name of our LORD JESUS CHRIST I advertise you particularly of it because we are entring on the season in which the world is won't to give it self the greatest licence for such debauches Dear Brethren let not it's ill examples seduce you Let not the custome of the age nor the pleasing of men induce you to forget the respect you owe to the Apostles voice and the Churches consolation Seek your joys in the service of your LORD and Saviour and in the meditation and expressing of His life and having always before your eyes the love He beareth you the death He suffered for you and the Heaven to which He calleth you love Him with all your heart and whatever you do whether in word or work do it all in the name of this sweet and merciful Saviour rendring thanks by Him to our GOD and Father unto His glory and the edification of your Neighbours and your own Salvation Amen THE FORTY THIRD SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER XVIII XIX Verse XVIII VVives be subject unto your own Husbands as is meet in the LORD XIX Husbands love your VVives and be not bitter against them DEAR Brethren As man is subject to a twofold consideration first in regard of his nature simply as he is a reasonable creature secondly in reference to his condition or the rank he holds in humane society that is as either a Master or a Servant a Magistrate or a Subject or the like so he is obliged according to these two different respects to two divers sorts of duties those of the first sort are general and common universally to all men the others of the second do relate but to some certain order of persons only I place in the first rank piety towards GOD honesty temperance justice and charity and such other vertues for which neither sex nor age nor condition doth dispense with any because every man whatever he is otherwayes being a reasonable creature is bound upon that account to practice all those vertues as a perfection and ornament meet for such a nature I reckon among the duties of the second sort the service that bondmen owe their masters the obedience of children to their fathers the dependance of wives in relation to their husbands and the like which pertain as you see only to persons in such conditions and not to all men generally This difference hath produc'd in the Schools of Heathen Sages the distinguishing of active Philosophy into divers parts the first whereof which they call Moral Philosophy or the Ethiques do's explain that first sort of common and general duties the others do treat of the second to wit the Economicks which regulate and form the several different conditions that constitute a family namely husband and wife parents and children master and servants and the Politicks whose task is to expound the devoirs of all the divers orders that compose an Estate as the Prince and the Subject the Magistrate and the Citizen men of the long Robe and of the Sword and the like The Apostles of our LORD in those writings which they have left us where they have unfolded to us the Divine Philosophy of their Master have also followed the same order though their difference otherwayes be very great For they set before us in like manner some general duties which oblige all Christians of what quality soever and in whatever
Barnabas had wrote them in recommendation of him And thereunto the Apostle adjoyns his own counsel to them Acts 15.39 saying if he come unto you receive him Some conceive that he thus writes because of that ill understanding that sometime hapned between him and Barnabas on the occasion of Mark to shew now that there was no relique of it in his heart However that be 't is certain as we read in the Acts that Mark bewray'd a little weakness at the beginning Acts 13.13 quitting Paul and Barnabas in Pamphilia without any reason amid their conquests But afterward the Grace of GOD so mightily strengthened him and so eminently employed him in converting of Nations that beside the memory of it which remains in all the monuments of antiquity he hath also drawn from the pen of St. Paul two or three very honourable testimonies this here for one Phil. 24. and another like it in the Epistle to Philemon where he mentions him among his fellow-workers and the most advantageous of all in the second to Timothy 2 Tim. 4.11 Take Mark saith he and bring him with thee for he is profitable to me for the Ministry The third of those whom the Apostle mentions here is Jesus called Justus 'T is probable that his true name was Jesus and that Justus was but the name which the Latines and Greeks gave him calling him Justus instead of Jesus it being usual with them to alter foreign names in that manner when they pronounc'd them in their own dialects We have of this servant of GOD no other memorial at all For though some conceive that it 's the same Justus of whom speech is in the 18th Chap. of the Acts unto whose house St. Paul retir'd at Corinth when he saw the Jews resist his preaching yet this seems not possible because this man was by extraction a Gentile and uncircumcised though he had some knowledge and fear of GOD as appears by St. Luke's terming him a religious man or one that worshipped GOD a character he ordinarily gives to persons of this condition as to Cornelius the Centurion and divers others whereas that Justus who is in question here was indeed a Jew and circumcised as St. Paul sheweth adding immediately of him and the two other afore-named who are of the circumcision and he praiseth them all three in commune saying that they alone to wit of their Nation were his fellow-workers unto the kingdom of GOD and protesteth that they were a consolation to him A great and an illustrious testimonial given them that they laboured with him in preaching the Gospel for the advancement of the kingdom of GOD that is to say for the edifying of the Church which the Scripture ordinarily calls the kingdom of Heaven and in the same sense the kingdom of GOD. Now this is that that the Apostle says of these three servants of the LORD It remains for a conclusion that we intimate unto you briefly what edification you ought to draw from those particulars which we have noted in the Apostles present Text. And first by the pain the Colâ—ssians were in for St. Paul and by the care St. Paul takes for their consolation you may see the ardent and cordial affection which the flocks and Ministers of CHRIST should have for one another Make your profit of it ye the LORD's sheep and tenderly compassionate the labours and the sufferings of your Pastors Ye Pastors do likewise and prefer before all interests of your own the edification and consolation of those sheep whom the great Shepheard hath redeemed with his blood Then again the love which these five faithful men here mentioned did bear unto St. Paul they keeping ever neer him and cheerfully and constantly obeying his orders shews us with what fervour we should serve such as suffer for the Gospel and with what zeal we should inseparably adhere to the Apostles of JESUS CHRIST the Teachers and Founders of the Church For though their persons be no longer here below yet their doctrine is and will remain here to the end and in this respect they are still in their sacred writings sitting as it were on twelve thrones thence judging all the Israel of GOD. Moreover the Apostle's praising all the persons he here speaks of so liberally as he doth may inform us with what candor we should acknowledge the graces which GOD hath imparted to our brethren diffusing the sweet savour of their good name through the Church and honouring their zeal and their fidelity with our testimonials to their comfort and the edification of their neighbours Far from us be envy and malignity and pride passions of a base alloy and unworthy of a truly noble Christian disposition Let not the graces and dignity of Paul induce him to despise Onesimus I mean let not the advantages of such as are greatest cause them to disdain the least But consider we particularly the examples of each of those five faithful men and imitate them For it 's to this end that the holy Apostle hath proposed them and thought meet to consecrate the memory of them in his divine and immortal Epistles not that he might oblige us to dedicate festivals to them or render them religious worship or invocate them as our Mediators away with such a thought for all this appertaineth to GOD only The true honour we owe them is to serve GOD after their example and conform our lives to theirs and draw the pourtraict of their high and holy vertues on our dispositions and our actions Imitate we the fidelity of Tychicus the repentance and faith of Onesimus the courage and the patience of Aristarchus the laboriousness of Marcus and of Justus in the matters of the Kingdom of GOD. Let not meanness of birth or of condition let not the greatness of sins discourage any JESUS CHRIST rejecteth neither the poor nor the peccant that come to him with faith witness Onesimus who though a bondman and fugitive yet so effaced all this ignominy that he hath praise from the mouth of the Apostle and his name engraven here in the temple of GOD among the names of the most illustrious Servants of His. If you have followed the LORD constantly and evenly as Tychicus and Aristarchus did thank Him for the grace He hath shewed you and go on from good to better If it hath befaln you as it did Mark to slacken sometime in the work of your heavenly calling resume likewise as he did your former vigour and reduce your selves to that pass as it may be said of you that you are useful for the LORD's service In general Beloved Brethren let us all be as these holy and happy persons were fellow-workers with the great Apostle unto the Kingdom of GOD burning with him in an holy zeal to glorifie JESUS CHRIST living with him in all pureness and sanctity employing with him our tongues our hands and our pens for the converting of men and edifying of the Church and finally couragiously suffering with