the service or Religious worship of Angels We are now to consider by the assistance of GOD that which the shortness of time hindered us from explicating then to wit the marks of these false Teachers and the pernicious consequence of their errour For though the Apostles intimation of the thing it self be sufficient His authority in the Church being such as it is not lawful for any man whoever he be to teach or believe any thing in Christian Religion contrary to the sentiment of this great servant of GOD Yet not content with injoyning the Colossians that they should not let themselves be master'd over by these pretended Doctors who would cause them to serve Angels for the adding of more weight to his exhortation he discovers to them those Seducers their true motives and the cause of their errour and remonstrates also the dismal issue in which it did engage them For as you have heard he noteth first their audaciousness and ignorance when he saith that they intrude into things they have not seen Next he shews the source of them to wit their foolish presumption when he adds that they are rashly puffed up with the sense of their flesh And lastly he represents us the pernicious consequence of their doctrine the fruit and success wherein all their striving did terminate which was that in effect by their glorious services they debauched and disunited men from JESUS CHRIST the true and only Head of believers and so depriv'd them of that life that light and salvation which this Divine Head influxeth into the members of His mystical body For this is in substance the sense of the latter part of the Text in which the Apostle saith that these people did not hold the head from which the whole body being furnished and fitly knit together by joints and bands encreaseth with the encrease of GOD. In these three heads the whole meaning of this Text seems to me to consist Wherefore if it please GOD we will examin them distinctly one after another and in the Apostles order treat first of these Seducers boldness secondly of their presumption and lastly of the consequence of their doctrine which tendeth to the disuniting of men from JESUS CHRIST the Head of the whole body of the Church As for the first point this temerity to intrude into things one hath not seen is ordinary enough with all sorts of men ever since the venom of pride impoisoned their hearts and in special with all hereticks But it is remarkable particularly in those that teach the service of Angels it being manifest that those blessed Spirits whose worship they erect are of a nature much superior to us the order and operations whereof are open to no sense of ours But when the Apostle saith they have not seen the things into which they intrude his meaning is not simply that the eyes either of their body or of their natural reason never received the Species of these objects nor apprehended or conceived the consequences and conduct of their being but moreover that they neither had nor could have by the word or revelation of GOD any certainty of the things they affirmed For though the greater part of the matters of Religion be above our senses yet when GOD hath discover'd them to us and as it were rendered them visible in His word it becomes easie for us to know them by this means and the Scripture too doth call the knowledge that we have of them this way a sight of them Ezek. 13.3 Thus Ezekiel means when he reprocheth the false Prophets with following their own hearts when they had seen nothing that is they predicted and assured things for true which the foolish imagination of their own Spirit suggested to them though in truth GOD had shewed them no such matter in the light of His revelation It is just so that those Seducers did whom the Apostle taxeth in this place They dogmatized and affirmed it as a clear case that Angels were to be serv'd and invocated and to perswade men of it they delivered many things concerning their nature and their intervention between GOD and us Yet the truth is that of all this they neither had nor could have any certainty as being things which they had never seen either in the School of nature or the revelation of GOD. All our knowledge and assurance necessarily comes from one of these three sources namely either from sense and such is the knowlege we have of the things we see hear smell touch and taste or from reason and so doth humane science which is acquired or formed by discourse and natural reasoning or lastly from the revelation of GOD who discovereth to us by the light of His word divers objects and divers verities which neither our sense nor our reason could perceive in nature Now though reason doth cause men by the consideration of things that are or are done in the world to discern some principles and verities of Religion yet the whole of this is so small a matter and withal so confused and imperfect by reason of the corruption of our understandings that the Word of GOD ought to be held for the sole assured foundation of Religion according to that which the Apostle signifies to us elsewhere Rom. 10.17.1 even that faith cometh by hearing and hearing from the word of GOD. When therefore he saith here that the Seducers do intrude into things they have not seen he doth it 's true respect in general all those Sources of our knowledge and absolutely deny that these men had by them any of the things they dogmatized but he does particularly referr to the third that is the revelation of GOD. And his meaning is that the LORD had not shewed them nor made them see by His Word any of the things they preached and would set up in the Religion of Christians And though indeed they neither had nor could have any certain knowledge of them nevertheless they discours'd of them blindfold and did divulge their phantasies the visions of their brain and dreams of their own Spirit for indubitable necessary and wholesome truths A carriage which the Apostle doth excellently well set forth by that word of his which we have translated intruding a word that properly signifies entring into setting foot on and marching forth in some quarter as in ground we have title to Whereby he noteth out the vanity of these false Teachers who did not meerly busie themselves in a research of things above their capacity which is in it self a vain and ridiculous labour but also dared to speak of them and make peremptory decisions about them so going above ground and walking as may be said in the vacuum of their own imaginations mounting their thoughts unto a Region far above them like that poor Phrenetick of whom the Poets speak who having presumed to enter upon a strange Element and fly there soon found his rashness punished with his ruine The Prophet makes use of a like phrase
when to represent his modesty Psal 131.1 he saith that he hath not walked in great things and too high for him Dear Brethren we have no need to ascend so far back as the Apostle's time for examples of this vanity Our Adversaries of the Communion of Rome do afford us a sufficient store who as they retain the errour of those whom the Apostle here taxeth serving Angels as they did so do inherit their temerity intruding into things they have not seen They do magisterially pronounce that men must serve and invoke Angels and Saints departed They boldly define the Religious Worship that is to be given and divide it us into its kinds naming one of them Dulia and the other Hyperdulia all with as much confidence as if they spake of things most obvious to sence I urge not for the present that Scripture doth blast this whole errour every where intimating that we ought to serve no one in Religion but GOD alone and with loud voice anathematizing the Worship of any creature I pretermit what it saith particularly against the Adoration and Worshipping of Angels as also that S. Paul doth expresly prohibit it in the Text. I keep singly to the rule he here gives me that no belief be afforded those who intrude into things they have not seen and do demand of these hardy Doctors in what Region in what part of Divine Revelation have they seen these Services these Dulia's and these Hyperdulia's of which they so positively speak Where is it that the Holy Ghost hath shewed them these brave Doctrines To what Prophet hath He revealed them To what Apostle hath He signified them Of what Evangelist have themselves learnt them Sure they must here be husht of necessity They have not seen one of these pretended mysteries in the Book of GOD. They cannot shew us any track of them any where except it be in the fancies of Plato and of the Heathen Philosophers the Disciples of Daemons and not of GOD men taught in the School of errour and not in that of truth They proceed further yet and make us discourses about the Orders of Angels and distribute to them their business and cut them out their Ministrations they rank the Saints and give to them each his Charge and employment And if you ask them how these Spirits being in Heaven do hear our Prayers and requests and by what means they see the secret motions of our hearts They answer some of them that the mirrour of the Trinity upon which they incessantly have their eyes doth present them all the Idea's of them others that GOD reveals them to them some other way But whence do they know this It is neither sense nor natural reason that hath shewed it them If therefore they have seen it any where it must be in the Revelation of GOD. Yet it is clear and they cannot deny it that neither this pretended mirrour nor any one of their other conjectures do appear there at all Cajetan in 22. q. 88. a. â— And one of their most famed Authors sufficiently declares it We do not know saith he by any certain reason whether the Saints do perceive our Prayers or no although we do piously believe it as if it were piety and not pittiful credulity to believe things of which we have no assurance But let him make what account of it he pleases This is evident that since he confesseth they have no assurance of these things it must of necessity be confessed also that it is extreamly ill done of them to intrude into them except he will reject the Authority of the Apostle in his condemning those here most expresly who intrude into things they have not seen This vanity doth further shew it self in the things they give out concerning the state of Souls in their fabulous Purgatory the scituation the structure and partitions whereof they represent together with the fire and torments of the Spirits that are there imprisoned with such a deal of confidence as if they were just now come from thence after many years stay in the place Nevertheless the truth is that neither they nor their Ancestors euer saw one jot of it either in the Scriptures of GOD or in the nature of things there being not a word any where of any one of these imaginations That which they say of their Transubstantiation with its conditions and circumstances and of the manner how the body of CHRIST is present in every crumb of their Hoste and in every drop of their Chalice Their positions likewise concerning their pretended Sacrifice of the Mass and concerning the relative or Analogical adoration of Images and concerning the Characters which some of their Sacraments do imprint upon the souls of men and in one word all the points of doctrine that we contest with them are of the same nature All of them are things they have not seen they intrude into them walk in them and strout vainly commanding the belief or practice of them under pain of damnation how doubtful and uncertain soever they be and furiously anathematizing all those who make the least doubt to receive them As for us Dear Brethren who through the grace of GOD have learned to preferr His voice before the imaginations of men and to fear the thundrings of Heaven more than the fulminations of Rome let us leave them in this vain humour or to say better pray to GOD to bring them out of it and give them to distinguish their own dreams from His declarations And for our further acquitting of our selves let us religiously keep to the Apostles direction Intrude we never into things we have not seen Neither be so simple as to follow those that do or to suffer our selves to be mastered over by them Let us rest in the things which GOD hath clearly revealed to us in His word which He hath so set before our eyes in that Divine Treasury of His truth as very children may there behold them This portion is sufficient for us if we cultivate it well we shall find in it abundantly wherewith to inform our understandings wherewith to calm our Consciences and sanctifie our hearts and perfect all the faculties of our souls Let no man presume above that which is written 1 Cor. 4.6 Rom. 12.3 Take heed of being wise above what is meet but be wise to sobriety Let the word of GOD be the rule of our science and His Book the bound of all our curiosity All knowledge is had without knowing any thing beyond it This consideration alone is enough to preserve us from all the errours of Rome For since the intruding into things we have not seen is a temerity condemned here by the Apostle and in matter of Religion we can have seen none but such as GOD hath revealed in His Word it evidently follows that we are obliged not only to forbear believing but also to proceed to the rejecting of all the Doctrines about which we are in contest with Rome
JESUS CHRIST here described by the Apostle And hence it appears how grievous the errour of those is who serve Angels there being not any thing in these words but does evince it First then the Apostle says they hold not the head 'T is true they do not make profession of letting it go For they affirm themselves Christians and do own JESUS CHRIST for the Prince and Author of their Religion But at the bottom and in effect they break the union which they should have with Him in quality of Head since they address themselves to Angels as their Mediators and Intercessors with GOD. For it 's a giving them the office of Head which pertains to one alone it being clear that this mediation which is the Source of our life is the office of our Head Again their impudence doth plainly appear in that JESUS CHRIST our Head doth furnish His body with all necessary graces For to what end should we go seek in Angels or Saints what we have abundantly in JESUS CHRIST Is there any grace any light any blessing which we may not have from Him Nay saith the Apostle it is he that furnisheth the whole body He is the fulness of grace an inexhaustible abyss of good Sure then it 's extream vanity to address our selves to any other and to seek the waters of life and of salvation in petty by-streams rather than in that so full so fresh and so abundant an only Source which the Father hath given us in this Divine Head Though the serving of Angels and Saints were permitted which yet it is not however 't is evident it would be unprofitable since we most assuredly have in JESUS CHRIST alone all the succour and assistance we can possibly pretend to from those creatures But that which the Apostle adds in the second place to wit that this Divine Head doth compact and knit together His whole body doth further potently oppose this error which divides the Church and brings a very manifest odd variety into its Services for that it multiplyeth the objects of its devotion causing some to serve one Angel or one Saint and others another some have a devotion for one and call themselves after him and others adhere to another as you plainly see by the example of those of Rome who are divided into divers bands and fraternities according to the Angels the Male and Female Saints to whom they engage their devotion not to say how each of them hath a particular service for his Angel guardian differing from the service of all others by reason of its object forasmuch as according to them every one hath his particular Angel different from those of others Whereas the true body of CHRIST is all knit together in a perfect union having but one only head JESUS CHRIST and one only religious service one and the same faith and one and the same Worship Lastly the Apostle yet again strikes at the Authors of this errour when he saith that the body of the Church being united guided and governed by its Head JESUS CHRIST increaseth with an increase of GOD. For these people are wont to vaunt of perfecting and increasing the Religion of Christians by the addition of such services as they invent But S. Paul informs us that this is not the increase that the Church receives which must be an increase of GOD an augmentation and advancement in things which He hath commanded an instituted whereas these people do grow only in the traditions of men and inventions of the flesh which add nothing to the true and legitimate magnitude of the body it becomes by them more blown up not fuller more deformed not greater They are like warts and wolfes and empostumes which disfigure and incommodate the body but are far from enriching or perfecting it Dear Brethren let us lay by all these strange doctrines Let us hold fast to this Holy and blessed Head JESUS the Son of GOD who hath vouchsafed to take us for His body Let us enjoy with awfullest respect the great honour He hath therein done us Be not we so ingrateful or so unadvised as to give that glory to any other which belongs to Him alone Let vain men submit to other heads let them profane this Divine quality of Head of the Church attributing it either to Angels or which is yet worse to a mortal man For our parts O LORD JESUS we neither have nor ever will have other head than Thee As it is Thou alone that hast redeemed us formed and associated us in the Communion of thy body So never will we address our Devotions our Religion our Services and invocations to any but to Thee It 's on Thee alone that we will live and of thy springs alone that we will draw Likewise with Thee are the words of Eternal life To what Saint besides should we go Without Thee we can do nothing and in Thee alone we can do all things Beloved Brethren this is the Vow which I now present to the LORD JESUS in the behalf of us all and I assure my self there is not one of you but heartily sayes Amen thereto It remaineth that we do faithfully acquit our selves of this great vow rendring up our selves to be guided and governed by the LORD JESUS CHRIST since He is our Head having no motion nor sentiment but what descends from Him and receiving into our Nerves and Arteries His Coelestial and divine Spirit sincerely renouncing the spirit of the Flesh and of the Earth which animates the world Remember that you are the body of CHRIST and live in such a pureness as may be worthy of so great a name Above all let us have those Sacred bonds between us which do fitly knit all the members of our LORD together that is to say the sentiments of a vigorus Charity communicating readily and chearfully to one another the graces which our common Head hath furnished us with for our mutual edification the rich their alms to those that are poor the knowing their instructions to the ignorant the strong their succour to the weak those that are in prosperity their Consolations to the afflicted encreasing all of us continually with an increase of GOD in Faith and Sanctification and advancing daily some paces towards the mark and prize of our supernal Calling This is the Discipline of the LORD JESUS This is that He hath commanded us His Apostles Preached and left in their Writings to us not the serving of Angels and other such inventions of superstition of which those holy men say not one Word except it be to refute and condemn them Rest we in their Doctrine and we shall have part in their bliss through the grace of JESUS CHRIST their Head and ours To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit the only true GOD blessed for ever be honour praise and glory to Ages of Ages Amen THE XXX SERMON COL II. Vers XX. XXI XXII Verse XX. If then ye be dead with CHRIST as to the rudiments
one upon another and is never satiated with this vain food It never sayes 't is enough it 's alway saying give give like the wiseman's horse-leach in the Proverbs Prov. 30.15 If it regulate your eating to day to morrow it will give you laws for your clothing and afterwards for each of the parts of your life not leaving so much as your looks or your breathing free It 's a Labyrinth wherein poor consciences go on intricating them selves without any issue and a snare which does first take them than bind them fast and in the end strangle them But let us now consider the two other reasons which the Apostle makes use of to shew the vanity of the pretended ordinances of superstition about the matter of meats and eating and drinking The second than is taken as we have already intimated from the nature of those things which abstinence from was commanded They are all saith he things that perish in the using That is such as are consumed in doing us service the very eating and drinking whereby they are taken doth destroy them and they are of so feeble and infirm a substance that they cannot be of use unto us without being corrupted and to nourish us they must first perish an evident signe that all the benefit we receive from them doth respect but this wretched mortal life it being neither possible nor imaginable that what perisheth and is consumed in us should have any force or vertue for the life of our soul which is immortal and incorruptible So you see the Apostle does here presuppose this maxime that neither Religion nor the service of GOD doth properly and immediatly consist either in the usage of or an abstinence from any of those things which serve to the maintaining of our common life and are consumed in serving thereto Rom. 14.17 as he saith elsewhere expresly that the Kingdom of GOD is neither meat nor drink but righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost He makes use of the same reason again in another place 1 Cor. 6.13 Meats saith he are for the belly and the belly for meats But GOD shall destroy both it and them His Master and ours had used it before upon the same argument to the same purpose against the vain scruples of the Pharisees the Patriarches of all this kind of disciplines T is not that Mat 15.11.17 saith he which enters in at the mouth that defiles a man Because as He adds immediatly after all that which enters in at the mouth goeth down into the belly and is cast out into the draught that is to say it perisheth and is consumed in the using 1 Cor. 8.8 Whence it comes that the Apostle pronounceth again elsewhere in consequence of the same doctrine that meat that is any certain sort of meat does not render us the more acceptable unto GOD 2 Tim. 3.4 and that there is neither gain in eating it nor loss in eating it not because as he saith elsewhere yet they are all created of GOD to be used by the faithful with thanksgiving so as nothing is to be rejected being taken with giving of thanks Sure were it not for the extreme blindness of men there would be no need for us to repeat and confirme so easie a lesson with such diligence and in so many places the sole light of reason and the nature of things it self teaching it us so clearly For who is there but sees this truth if he heed it ever so little and discovers of himself that one is not the better or the more holy for eating Herbs or Fish nor the worse or more vitious for living on other things All this seâ—ves but to sustein the seeble nature of this poor body and terminates there without penetrating to the soul whose essence is wholly spiritual It 's the conceptions of the understanding and the disposition of the heart and the habitudes that referr to them and the actions that proceed from them which make men good or bad and their morals laudable or blamable so as it 's a gross and a deplorable error though I grant it hath ever been and still is very common to make a part of piâ—ty and sanctity consist in eating of or absteining from some sorts of meats But the Apostle contents not himself with citing the conclusions of reason and the nature of the things themselves against the vain and pernicious ordinances of these Seducers For the overthrowing them without recovery and the taking away all pretext of defending them he further makes use in the last place of a strong and invincible argument drawn from their being established after the commandments and doctrines of men Thus it was that GOD did sometime strike the vain services of Israel 〈…〉 Their fear of me said He is an humane commandment taught by men And the LORD JESUS overturns all the authority of the Jewish traditions Mat. 15.9 with the same shot reproching them that it was in vain they honoured GOD teaching doctrines which were but commandments of men And it should seem 't is hence that S. Paul took both the conception and the expression he useth in this place This reasoning my Brethren is extremely considerable The Apostle rejects the ordinances of the Seducers because they are commandments and doctrines of men There 's no man but sees that this discourse hath no consequence unless upon presupposal that nothing ought to be receiv'd in Religion under the quality of necessary belief or service except it be either taught or commanded of GOD and not of men only It 's the doctrine of the Apostle S. Paul in this place the doctrine of the Prophet Isaiah in that other which we alledged even now it 's the doctrine of JESUS the Master of Apostles and Prophets in His dispute against the Pharisees O holy and pretious verity from how many errors wouldst thou deliver the world if according to the authority of our LORD and those two grand Ministers of His men would examine all things by thee as their rule and consider when some article in Religion is preached to us not whether it be specious and have some appearance of reason or whether it hath been yerwhile held by the Sages of the time past or be for the present believed by the greater part of Princes and people but whether it be indeed taught of GOD in His word or meerly set forth by men Dear Brethren by this short and simple method you may easily settle your thoughts about all the differences that rend Christendom at this day Take the Book of GOD and admit nothing into your belief but what you shall find either asserted or commanded therein refusing whatsoever the word of the LORD hath not authorized Sure I am that the Sacrifice of the Masse and Purgatory and Transubstantiation and the Monarchie of the Pope and the Invocation of Saints and in a word all that divideth us from Rome will remain among those commandments and
last words of this Text whence it is that the Colossians had conceived so high an hope Of which saith he you have heard heretofore by the word of truth to wit the Gospel This Soveraign bliss which is reserved for us in the Heavens is so highly raised above nature that neither subtility of sense nor vivacity of reason nor even the light of the Law could discover it to us much less give us the hope thereof 2 Tim. 1.10 That same JESVS CHRIST who hath destroyed death hath brought to light life and immortality by the Gospel Before this they were either entirely unperceived or imperfectly known and hoped for It 's therefore precisely from the Gospel that we draw both the faith and the hope of them He calleth the Gospel the word of truth not as some will have it because it is the Word of JESUS CHRIST who is the Truth and the life for this exposition is more subtil than solid but because it is the most excellent of all Verities those that are learned in the School of Nature and of the Law being mean and unprofitable in comparison of those which the Gospel doth discover to us It may well be that the Apostle would also secretly oppose the doctrine of the Gospel to those of the seducers which still recommended shadows and figures as we shall hear in the following Chapter whereas the Gospel presenteth us the substance and the truth of things And it seems to be in this sense that St. John after he had said The Law was given by Moses addeth in form of opposition John 1.17 But grace and truth came by JESVS CHRIST because the Law had only dark lineaments and shadows whereas the LORD JESUS brought us the lively image the body and the truth of celestial things The Apostle remindeth the Colossians that they had already heretofore heard this Word of truth as it were to protest unto them that he would promote no novelty among them having no other design but to confirm them more and more in the holy doctrine they had already received with faith from Epaphras and other Ministers of the LORD See well beloved Brethren that we had to say to you for the exposition of this Text. It remaineth that we briefly touch at for you the principal points we should gather of it as well for the instruction of our Faith as the edification of our Charity and the consolation of our souls As for Faith 't is for it's security that St. Paul telleth us at the entrance He is an Apostle of JESVS CHRIST by the will of GOD advertising us by this quality He assumeth to receive no doctrine into our belief which hath not been annunciated by these great and highest Ministers of the LORD Let us examine the Spirits and admit only the word of the Apostles If any one Evangelize beyond what they have preached let us hold him for an Anathema We have their Scriptures Let us assuredly believe all that we read in them Let the doctrine which appears not there be suspected to us and praised be GOD that according to this rule we have banished from our Religion that which error and superstition had thrust into Christianity You know that the GOD the CHRIST the Heaven the Worship and Sacraments we preach have been given us by the Apostles of the LORD established by the Will of GOD and do appear throughout in their Gospels and in their Epistles Whereas the Mediators whom our Adversaries invocate the High Priest they acknowledge the Traditions they maintain the Purgatory they fear the greatest part of the Sacraments they celebrate the adoration of the Host the veneration of Images and the voluntary Worships which they practise are not found at all either in the Old or the New Testament Let us therefore firmly retain our Religion as instituted by the Will of GOD and constantly reject what is beyond it as come of man and not of the LORD from the Earth and not from Heaven But it is not enough to make profession of it we must plant this doctrine in our hearts by a lively belief in such sort as we may be able to say with truth That we have faith in JESUS CHRIST and charity towards all the Saints We render thanks to GOD with the Apostle for that of His great mercies He hath vouchsafed to communicate this treasure of His Gospel to us and not in vain since there are among us that have truly made their profit of these spiritual riches But the life of the greater part renders them unworthy of the praise which St. Paul here giveth the Colossians For is this to have Faith in JESUS CHRIST to serve Him so loosely as we do and testifie so little zeal for His glory so little respect to His Commandments so little belief of his documents and so little affection for the interests of His Kingdom As for Charity I am ashamed to speak of it so cooled is ours For if we loved all the faithful should we leave the life of some of them and the reputation of others without succour Should we injure them instead of defending them Should we take away their substance instead of communicating to them our own Should we black their honour instead of preserving it Would their prosperity offend us Would their miseries content us Faithful Sirs remember they are the Saints of GOD His Children and the Brethren of His CHRIST Respect those so sacred names and spare persons that have the honour to belong so nearly to your LORD He will judge you by the treatment you shall give them and write on his account the good and the evil which they shall receive from your hands recompensing it or punishing in the very same manner as if you had honoured or violated Him in His own person He will cut you off from His communion if you do not carefully regard and practise theirs and will never avouch you for His Children if you acknowledge them not for your Brethren And here alledge not to me I beseech you that you have faith I know well that this divine light cannot be in souls which are cold and destitute of Charity But suppose that this were possible I tell you and declare that all your pretended faith should you have the highest degree thereof that may be in the world without charity would be but a shadow an Idol and an illusion and as St. James saith a stinking carkass James 2.26 Do all you will Have as much faith and knowledge as you please if you have not charity you are not a Christian you are but a false and deceitful image of one Charity is absolutely necessary to the perfection of a Christian It is the badge of this holy Discipline it is the honour and the glory of it and the Apostle as you see sets it down here among it's essential parts Faith shall cease in Heaven when we shall see instead of believing But charity shall remain for ever Have then a
it is maintained by the terrour of Inquisitions and the pomp of a worldly power and the favour of the Great who find their own interests in it It is only the Gospel of the LORD that from its birth had the courage and the force to fly every way penetrating with incredible swiftness all the Regions of the habitable world in less than five and twenty years And let none alledge unto me here the Seduction of Mahomet which infected the East and the South and a part of the West it self in a very little time For there is nothing alike in the progress of the one and the other of these two doctrines I pass by other differences that may be observed I will only touch at one of the most essential namely that Mahomet and his Successours advanced not their impostures but by force of Arms and dint of Sword not Preaching and establishing their Doctrine save in the Countreys they conquer'd and among the Nations they brought under their Yoke To say true it was their Iron and not their Alcoran that ran through and spoiled the World What was strange or supernatural in their success That a Troop of Robbers whom their own need or others cowardice and confusion emboldened to enterprise could seize them of some Towns by fraud or force That puffed up with the good fortune of their first successes and by a multitude of people joyned with them they pushed further on and issuing out of their Arabia should attempt the outmost quarters of the Roman Empire very ill-garded at that time and in a manner exposed to pillage and that gaining ground by little and little they should fall on further and break in on one side and the other as the division and weakness of their enemies gave them opportunity so as in fine in the space of three or four score years they saw by these progresses the East and the South in their hands Sure there was nothing but humane in all this Alexander the Macedonian had yer-while done as much or more in less than fifteen years and Sesostris and divers others both before and after him It is then no Miracle that the Religion of the Saracens born if I may so say upon the wings of their victorious Ensignes saw much of the World by this means in fifty or sixty years If any marvel be it is that of their armes which did so great exploits in so small time and not that of their Alcoran which never entred but into places whose gates fire and sword opened for it But as to the Gospel of the LORD JESUS it is quite otherwise It had not to sustain it and advance it in the world either the aid of force or the favour of armes or the successes of Warr or the exploits of any Conquerour It had not in its service either the charms of Eloquence or the subtilities of Philosophy in one word it had no humane or terrene succour that you can possibly imagine Those that carryed it were twelve or thirteen Fishermen with a little number of others of the same Cloth without Credit without Armes without courage without Experience the off-scouring and sweepage of the world weakness and imbecillity it self who far from enterprising upon ought of other mens had renounced all that was their own who instead of smiting and slaying where whip'd and ston'd at every turn instead of attaquing did not so much as make resistance to them that ill handled them living in an extreme humility and innocence With this poor equipage the Gospel undertook the world and though it met every where with gates shut up and walls garrison'd with all that was terrible to force it back though the Jews persecuted it the gentiles derided it great and small had it in abomination Magistrates banish'd it and put it under the most cruel punishments though all did rend it with injuries and reproaches yet naked as it was it made it self room and in spight of so many dreadful impediments ran from East to West and from South to North and so constantly despised all earthly means as it reigned every where for sixcore years before it had one Magistrate or Captain on its side disarming and despoiling them when it received any so far was it from making advantage of their arms or authority We may affirm therefore that this progress of the Gospel is a thing altogether singular not at any time else seen or hapning in the world and with which neither Mahumetism nor any other Religion hath any community Consequently that this is a mark of the truth and divinity of this holy doctrine those that are humane neither having nor being able to have that admirable force and vertue which appeareth in it But this event proves the same thing yet again after another manner inasmuch as it was a manifest accomplishment of ancient Oracles yer-while given by the LORD to His former people and registred in His Scriptures which foretell in divers places that the Messiah should spread all abroad the knowledge of the true GOD which was before shut up within the strait limits of Judea Isa 60.3 9.1 that the Nations one day should walk in His light and that people sitting in darkness should see a great light which the LORD JESUS explaining in the dayes of His flesh had said upon it Mat. 24.14 that His Gospel should be Preached in all the world These predictions therefore appearing at that time so punctually and so admirably and in so short a space fulfilled who can doubt any more but that the LORD JESUS is the true CHRIST since never any but He revealed the GOD of Israel and His service to the World and that His Apostles were the servants of this same GOD who having foretold these things so many ages before so mightily executed them by their Ministry in the fulness of time But besides the confirmation of the Colossians faith in general I account that the Apostle would more-over by this Elogy he gives the Gospel to be come into all the world fortifie them in particular against the new doctrines which some seducers were sowing in their Church For since other Churches founded here and their in divers parts of the world had heard nothing of them it was a very evident argument that they were not any part of the Gospel that is of what the Apostles Preached Whence we may draw to give you this advice by the way an invincible proof both of the truth of the doctrine we believe and of the vanity of that which we contest about with our adversaries of Rome For as to that we hold it is evident the Apostles Preached it in all the world both by word of mouth and by writing there being none of the necessary positive and assirmative articles of our faith but doth appear in all the Monuments of Apostolique Preaching to wit both in the Books they wrote and in the Churches they sounded As for our adversaries it is no less evident they can
Son is not Eternal and co-essential with the * As the whose Church believeâ— Fathers but created and made by the will and good pleasure of the Father For the Apostle doth not speak here of the original of the perfections that are found in CHRIST but of their being united and met together in one and the same subject I acknowledge it is by the good pleasure of the Father and by the order of His will that the Godhead of the Son dwelleth in the Mediator But it thence follows that this Godhead of His is an effect of the Fathers will It was before it filled the Mediator The same Father who by His will united it to our flesh for the making up together with that flesh the person of CHRIST had communicated it to His Son from all Eternity by a natural act of His Eternal understanding that is to say by a Divine Generation Now it is not in vain that the Apostle here advanceth this assertion That it was the good pleasure of the Father all fulness should dwell in HIS CHRIST But he doth it with design to * Or settle confirm our Consciences in the Religion of the LORD JESUS only For these Colossians as we shall see hereafter were tamper'd with by Seducers who mingled the Mosaical Ceremonies with the Gospel and the worshipping of Angels with the service of the LORD the Apostle therefore doth here timely fortifie these Believers against this error and that by two excellent Reasons the first taken from the dwelling of all fulness in JESVS CHRIST Poor men saith he what seek you for either in Moses or in Angels we have all in JESUS CHRIST There is no good no perfection nor excellency either in GOD or in the Creature but dwelleth in this Soveraign LORD Having Him we have no need at all to go unto others since in Him we find all The other Reason is taken from the Will of GOD the supreme rule of Religion the only thing that is sufficient to settle the agitation and natural distrust of our Consciences As for JESUS CHRIST saith he it was the good pleasure of GOD that in Him should all fulness dwell The Father hath set up Him to be the spring of our salvation But as for Moses and Angels we do not see that ever it was the will of the Father to give them such a dignity Dear Brethren now that our faith is fought against with the like errors let us arm it also with the same reasons If the Adversary send us to Angels and Saints let us answer him that the LORD JESUS sufficeth us that having Him we can want nothing since all fulness dwelleth in Him I will not enquire for the present what these Angels and Saints are whom you recommend to me whether they have indeed that merit and that righteousness and that authority which I need for the expiation of my sin and for opening the house of GOD to me How rich and how abounding soever you represent them to me I may let pass their store this CHRIST whom I embrace having all fulness dwelling in Him Let them be all that you please they will want however some part of that infinite plentifulness which overfloweth in our CHRIST And how zealous soever you be for their glory yet you durst not presume to say that all fulness dwelleth in them How great is your imprudence to go hither and thither a groping in pits and cisterns while you have near you such a living and inexhaustible fountain Grant that the worshipping of Saints is not criminal which yet it evidently is it is notwithstanding superfluous forasmuch as it hath nothing in it but we find the same better in the fulness of JESUS CHRIST But the other consideration which the Apostle sets before us here is of no less force That it was the good pleasure of the Father all fulness should dwell in His CHRIST My Faith yea our Adversaries attends on the will of GOD. This will is its object and its rule I cannot rellish either Doctrine or Service that is not conform thereto Tell me how you know it is the good pleasure of GOD that this fulness of merit and power which you ascribe somtimes to Saints departed somtimes to your Pope and his Ministers doth indeed dwell in them As for the LORD JESUS whom I adore and in whom I seek all my bliss the Father hath proclaimed from Heaven That He is His welbeloved Son His Scriptures declare That He hath committed all judgment to Him and That all fulness dwelleth in Him But as for those others whom you have taken for objects of your Devotion and to whom you have recourse for your salvation you cannot shew me any thing semblable of them Certainly then it must be vouched that all your Devotion in this behalf is but a Will-worship founded only on your own passion and the fancy of your Leaders not upon the good pleasure of the Father It is strange fire that hath issued out of the earth and not been kindled from Heaven Such as cannot without crime either enter into or be used in the Sanctuary of GOD. But I return to the Apostle who having said That it was the good pleasure of the Father all fulness should dwell in CHRIST doth add And by Him to reconcile all things in Himself both those that are in Heaven and those that are in the earth This is the great Master-piece of the good pleasure of GOD the end for which His will was that the fulness of all Divine and Humane perfections should be seated in CHRIST And this is that which the particle and used by the Apostle doth signifie It doth not meerly connect the two parts of his discourse but importeth moreover the consecution and the dependance of the latter on the former as if He had said It was the good pleasure of the Father that in JESUS CHRIST should all fulness dwell and so reconcile or to the end that He might reconcile all things by Him For all this fulness which the Father would that His CHRIST should have dwelling in Him was necessary for His effecting this Reconciliation There needed he should have the power and the holiness and the wisdom of the Divinity and together with it the humility and the obedience and the meritorious sufferings of the Humanity that he might finish this design He could not have been able to re-unite Heaven and Earth with less preparations Let us see then what this work is this Reconciling the Apostle speaks of of all things Terrestrial and Celestial in GOD by JESVS CHRIST It is clear by the Scriptures that JESUS CHEIST hath by His death reconciled men unto GOD so as He hath appeased His wrath and opened to us the Throne of His grace as the Apostle teacheth us in divers places and particularly in the Epistle to the Romans Rom. 5.10 11. 2 Cor. 5.18 where he saith That we have been reconciled to GOD by the death of His Son and
which we trust and the Worship we give Him in Spirit and in truth and the Heaven we hope for and the Sacraments we celebrate and all the other Articles of our Religion do they not every where appear in the Books of Paul and of the other Apostles Are they not to be seen in all the Monuments of these great men as well in their Writings as also in the Churches which they planted through the earth Let us therefore my Brethren abide firm in this faith since it most assuredly is the Gospel which was heretofore preached in all the world and was commited to S. Paul's ministring And if those of Rome do alledge to us their Devotions and Traditions let us boldly tell them that if those things were any part of the Gospel they would appear in what the Apostles preached to whom JESUS CHRIST gave the Ministry thereof And in the mean time there is not found any one of them in the Sacred Volumes which they have left us to be the rule of our faith Neither the adoration of the Hoast nor the veneration of Images nor the invocation of Saints departed nor the other points for which they have Excommunicated us And herein their Head doth evidently discover how Apostolical he is to banish those from his Communion whom S. Paul here expresly declares to be at peace with GOD holy and unreprovable before Him For to have this happiness he doth not oblige us to believe or practice this pretended Gospel of Rome He requireth us only abide firm in the belief of his the Gospel which he preached to the faithful and left in his Epistles In them our Religion is to be seen full and whole But not one Article of that which Rome would by all means constrain us to receive But there is no need we should make further stay upon this matter the truth of that Doctrine which we embrace being so clear that no man who understands Christianity and owns the Divinity of it can call it into question And on the other hand the absurdity of the Doctrine we reject is so palpable and so rudely beats against the foundations of Reason and Scripture that it s very difficult for a man who hath had any taste of the Gospel ever to yield up his consent to the errors we contest except GOD have blinded him in punishment of his ingratitude The great combate which we have most cause to fear is that of the passions of our flesh It 's these properly that enfeeble faith that darken its light that hide the truth from its view and paint up error These are the true causes of their change who desert us and of the offence of many that are infirm among us Experience shews it us daily And accordingly you see Matth. 13.21 22. our Saviour hath advertis'd us of it having said in one of His Parables that it is either the fear of persecution or the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches that makes the seed of heaven unfruitful in the hearts of men and obstructs their perseverance And S. Paul somwhere imformeth us 2 Tim. 1.19 that they that reject a good conscience make shipwrack also in respect of faith When a man is once sold over to pleasure or avarice or ambition it is no wonder if in the sequel he disgust the truth and fall into error The passage is easie from the one to the other Besides the slaves of sin not finding the contentation of their passions in the profession of Truth which is for the most part under the cross their interest carries them to seek their satisfaction in the world this gives an huge shake to their minds and brings them by degres to relish the worlds side and party as it is natural to us to believe easily the things we desire Here therefore it is dear Brethren that we must put to our might and fight in good earnest if we would continue firm in the faith Give me a man that embracing JESUS CHRIST hath cast off the lusts of the flesh and of the world and I will be secure of his perseverance Take me away the colours wherewith avarice and ambition and vanity do paint-over error in the thoughts of the worldly-minded and I will not fear its seducing of any Cleanse your Conscience and your Faith will be out of danger The Devil without doubt made use of his best weapons against our LORD and you know that having represented to Him the hunger and the necessity he was in he omitted not to spread before His eyes the pomp of the Grandeurs and riches of the world It is a wile he still puts in practise and his Ministers do not forget this piece of his play they fail not to tell such as they would destroy that they will give them wonders Faithful Brethren let us fence our selves seasonably against this tentation Mortifie we in us all the lusts of Flesh and Earth accustom our selves to a not-dreading the Cross and the sufferings of our LORD suffer not the world to dazle our eyes Look we upon it as a deceitful shew unable to content its own adorers To the false goods wherewith it feedeth its bond-servants let us oppose the true ones which the Gospel promiseth Let the sweet and noble hope of these enflame our souls with an ardent desire of heaven and its immortality Let it sweeten all the bitterness that attends our profession and make execrable to us all that tendeth to turn us away from so blessed a design Courage Christian yet a little patience and you have overcome Your faith if you abide firm in it will open in your heart for the present a living spring of such joy as is a thousand times sweeter than all the pleasures of Worldings And it shall be crowned one day with that supereminent and immortal glory which the Gospel that you have believed doth promise to all those which shall constantly persevere in the Vocation of the LORD JESUS To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit the true and only GOD blessed for ever be all honor and praise to ages of ages Amen THE XIII SERMON COL I. Ver. XXIV Vers XXIV Whereupon I now rejoyce in my sufferings for you and to fill up the remainder of the afflictions of CHRIST in my flesh for His body which is the Church THE Gospel of the LORD JESUS hath many admirable evidences of its divinity and among them the sufferings of its Confessors and Martyrs are in my opinion not the least illustrious For if you seriously consider them you will find that there never was any doctrine in the world that drew more persecutions upon its followers or that inspired them with so much courage and resolution to undergo the same or was in effect sealed with such a deal of blood and patience Other religions as being sprung from the earth are welcome there and the world that well knoweth its own blood and its own spirit shews them kindness and
from them complaints and crys against your carriages that you consolate the pains they take for you by your resentment of the same and above all by your progress in the studious pursuit of piety For this is the only fruit they crave of all their cares and their combats they would account them most advantagiously recompenced if you do but profit by them if they perceive by the goodness of your manners and the sanctity of your life that they have not labored in vain But do not imagin I pray that their sollicitude doth discharge you of all care On the contrary it sheweth you with what earnestness and assiduity you should labor for your own Salvation For if they must heed your affairs with so much diligence what zeal should you put forth about them your selves Their travel may awaken and hearten you but it cannot save you except you travel your selves Their combating will win you no Crown if you take not part in it after their example Every one shall live by his own faith and no person be crowned for the zeal of his Pastor or his brother If your Pastors watch if they stand on their guard if they labour and combat blessed be GOD they shall receive their pay But their labouring will not excuse your loytering nor will their heedfulness justifie you neglects Every man shall bear his own burthen they may give you the example of their piety they will not be able to communicate to you the recompences of it Employ we then our selves both the one and the others Pastors and flocks about our Salvation with fear and trembling Let us all combat with Paul if we will be crowned with him Imitate we his Charity if we desire to partake in his Glory Let us extend our cares and our love as he did not only to the saithful whom we know but even to those whom we never saw For carnal amities I confess it is bodily sight and presence which enkindles and maintains them The eyes of the flesh are the authors and the preservers of them But in those of JESUS CHRIST it is otherwise It 's the Spirit that knits them It is its eye and its sight that causeth them both to begin and to continue For since it is properly JESUS CHRIST and His Gospel that Charity loveth it is evident that it ought to embrace all those which bear the marks of them whether they be absent or present The distance of times and places doth not hinder these sacred commerces The Apostle combateth even for those that had never seen him Let us also then love all true Christians and spread our affections as far as to those whom many Seas and many Mountains sever from us Let us combate for them by prayer and do them how far off soever they be from us all the Offices whereof our Charity shall be capable travelling with holy tenderness for the salvation and edification of one another But having considered St. Paul's combat let us now examine the end and design of it Whence comes it holy Apostle that thou takest so much pains and hast these Colossians and Laodiceans and even those that never saw thee so neer thy heart Why doth this carefulness follow thee to the very prison and come there to aggravate and invenom thy personal sufferings Why labourest thou so for them To the end saith he that their hearts may be comforted they being joyned together in love and in all riches of full certainty of understanding unto the knowledg of the secret of our GOD and Father and of CHRIST Thus doth the Apostle answer our demand I am in pain saith he for their consolation and their faith I combat to preserve this treasure to them and to prevent the enemies snatching out of their hands so precious and so necessary a possession By saying he combats for them that they may keep these Graces He sheweth That they were in danger to lose them if the enemies they had that is the Seducers and false Apostles did accomplish their design and perswade these faithful people to those errors which they were setting forth In effect it is evident that their doctrine of man's Justification by ceremonies and observations whether legal or humane is incompatible with the truth of the Gospel doth disturb the comfort of the faithful break the bond of charity confoundeth and embroileth the mystery of JESUS CHRIST bereaveth Him of His glory and of His plentifulness representing Him as poor and scanty and as needing the succour either of Moses or of Philosophy and the superstition of men to give us Salvation The Apostle nameth three things which he wisheth unto these Believers and which he would keep for them by his cares and combats Consolation of heart Conjunction in charity and the riches of a full certainty of understanding or as he expresseth the same thing in other terms knowledg of the secret of our GOD and Father and of CHRIST The first of these to wit Comfort of heart is the happiness of the faithful upon earth For it is that calm and tranquillity which their souls enjoy amidst the tempests of this life when they sweetly repose themselves upon their Master's word and are assured to partake of His Salvation notwithstanding the menaces and persecutions of the enemy and the defects and imperfections of their own course All heresie and error in Religion doth necessarily disturb this consolation because it shakes the truth and certainty of the doctrine of the Gospel upon which it is founded But the error which the Apostle sets himself to oppose did particularly strike at this part of our Salvation depriving consciences of that peace which faith in JESUS CHRIST doth afford them and casting them into a miserable agitation in that it makes their justification to depend on I know not what observances that are either vain and unprofitable or even impious and pernicious It 's this that animates S. Paul to combat it so vigorously every where because the faithful could not receive it without losing their true consolation that is their only hearts-good And this should make us jealous for the purity of the Gospel to keep it free from all admixture of error Let us not hearken unto those who tell us that if what they have added to the Gospel do displease us yet we cannot deny but they retain JESUS CHRIST and the foundations of our Salvation in Him It is a most evident delusion I confess that JESUS CHRIST giveth Salvation and Consolation but He doth it to those that embrace Him as He presents Himself to us on His Cross and in His Gospel naked and without adulteration and composition If you will have either vice or superstition with Him He will serve you for nothing save to augment your condemnation As food how good and wholsome soever it be will no less then kill you if it be mingled with poyson We must either receive JESUS CHRIST alone or renounce His Salvation There is no possibility to
that is necessary for you Let your whole life be taken up in the continual handling of these Divine Jewels in admiring the beauty and using the brightness of them Let it be all the passion of your souls the matter of your joys and the consolation of your troubles If you have not those false good things which the world so much glorieth in remember that you have the treasures of Heaven the portion of Angels the wisdom and knowledg of happiness Take heed that none bereave you of so rich a possession Shut your ear against the prattle and plausible discoursings of Seducers Conserve this treasure couragiously against their attempts nor be content to have it only communicate it to your neighbours lay forth the wonders of it before their eyes adorning all the parts of your life with it Let the innocency and sanctity and sweetness and humility of the LORD JESUS shine out in it Let these be your Pearls and your Jewels and your Ornaments before men which may constrain them to acknowledg that JESUS CHRIST dwells in the midst of you and to say Of a truth this Nation is a wise and understanding people Above all instruct your Children in this knowledg Leave them this wisdom for an inheritance Such a portion is enough to make them happy whereas without this they cannot possibly be other than fools and wretches though you should leave them all the wealth of the East and West Finally since the Apostle assureth us that all the treasures of wisdom are in JESUS CHRIST let us content our selves with him alone and centemn the vanity of those who under any pretence whatsoever would make pass for wisdom doctrines that are forreign and without the sphere of CHRIST Let us not so much as give them the hearing It 's warrant enough for us to reject them that they make up no part of the treasure of JESUS CHRIST I stand not to enquire whether they be true or false helpful or hurtful It sufficeth me that whatever they be otherways they are not in CHRIST Nothing is to be received in Religion but what comes out of this treasury GOD who hath given it us in his abundant mercy and who calleth us to partake also of it the LORD's day next grant us to conserve it pure and entire to possess it with joy and respect in this world and reap the full fruit of it in that which is to come So be it THE EIGHTEENTH SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER IV V. Ver. IV. But this I say that none may deceive you by words of perswasion V. For though I am absent in body yet in spirit I am with you rejoycing and seeing your order and the firmness of your faith which you have in CHRIST AS men do not naturally love and desire but things which have an appearance of good so they believe none but those that have a semblance of truth and they lay down love of the one and belief of the others as soon as they certainly discover that the former are evil and the latter untrue Whence it comes that being prepossessed upon some general and confused knowledg with conceit that the enjoyment or belief of a thing would be profitable and advantageous to them they wish it prove good and true evidently presupposing that otherwise their very nature could not permit them to love it or believe it This is to be seen in children themselves who are the sincerest and most natural map of the motions of our nature For when their Nurses tell them any thing they ask if it be true and if the tale please them they are troubled when they perceive it is but a tale and would have it true that they might believe it So deeply imprinted in the mind of all reasonable Creatures is this sacred and inviolable principle of their nature that nothing is to be believed but what is true This advantage which truth naturally hath over falshood doth enforce its very enemies to counterfeit its mark and wear its livery they being sensible that their errors and falshoods can have no passage among men except they go under the appearance of some truth Even as Coiners that they may put off their Copper and Lead do give it the colour and resemblance of Gold and Silver and counterfeit the image and stamp of a lawful Prince or as they that would travel through an enemy's Countrey do privily accommodate themselves with the enemy's badges so Seducers well knowing that the understanding of man is the proper and lawful Kingdom of truth where nothing passes but under the avouching and marks of the same do fard and disguise the fictions which they would put off and give them as finely as they can the countenance and colour of truth that by the means of this false resemblance they may pass currant among men who would reject them immediately if they saw them in their own natural likeness There hath ever been a great number of these cheats in the world a multitude of persons being every where found who pricked forward by ambition or some other particular interest do strive to bring their fancies and dreams into reputation But as Christian Religion compriseth the best and most important Verities in the world so there never was any profession that Error and Imposture have more laboured to corrupt both by decrying some of its true doctrines on one hand and by intermingling of falshoods on the other And as all the artifice of such unhappy wits tendeth only to confound truth and lies so ought we to employ the utmost of our industry that we may effectually sever them and so discern them as we never take the one for the other This discerning dear Brethren is one of the most important duties of our life It is loss I confess to take Copper for Gold and bad money for good and it is moreover ignorance ever shameful sometimes not a little hurtful to receive an error for truth in Philosophy and in civil life But yet the loss and shame that accrues from all this kind of cheats reacheth no further than the present time whereas the consequents of those impostures which we suffer in Religion do extend even to eternity For this cause the holy Apostle often warneth the faithful Rom. 16.17 1 Thes 5.21 Eph. 4.14 Heb. 5.14 to whom he writeth to beware of them and to try all things with a great deal of care that they may not be inveigled by seducers nor take up their traditions for truths willing every sound and thorough Christian to have his senses exercised and habituated to discern between good and evil You may have observed in the Text we have read that this is the happiness which he wisheth and would procure to the Colossians keeping them from being drawn in by the fair speeches of those seducers that courted them He had afore represented to them at large the abundance and excellency of the benefits of their LORD and Saviour and he protested again in the
which I delivered unto you that is taught It therefore calls those Doctrines Traditions of men which have men only for their authors which come from men and not from GOD. I confess that errors derived from that Philosophy whereof he spake even now may also bear the same name since they slowed from the spirit of man and had no other source than his imagination yet the Apostle distinguisheth the one from the others for two reasons as I conceive First Forasmuch as these had some colour of abstruse wisdom being sprung from speculations in shew sublime and excellent though in reality vain and frivolous whereas the Doctrines which he here calleth Traditions had no foundation at all but the authority of those that set them up and the usage of those that practis'd them they being otherways far from all Philosophical reasons not only true and solid but also probable Secondly Because they had had some successive continuance among the people of GOD having been deliver'd by the Pharisees and other Zealots of Judaism from father to son in a series of no small length whereas that which he calls the deceit of Philosophy was not deliver'd in that manner but lately invented by these new Teachers and taken from the dreams of some Philosophers Whence it doth appear that no productions or institutions of an human spirit are receivable in Evangelical Religion neither those that are supported by some pretended reasons nor those that are founded upon use and antiquity They are all of them nothing but folly and vanity in the sight of GOD with what colour soever they be painted over And though men boast of their utility they are extreamly hurtful as pestring Consciences and busying them about things which GOD hath not ordained and turning them aside from his pure service to matters of nought Accordingly you see that our LORD JESUS CHRIST rejects and roughly thrusts away all the traditions of the Pharisees how much esteem'd soever they were for their antiquity and pretended use reproaching them that by holding fast those Traditions of men they did let loose the Commandments of GOD and applying to them those words of the LORD in Isaiah Mark 7.8 Isa 29.13 In vain do they honour me teaching Doctrines which are the commandments of men As indeed it s an unsufferable presumption that man should attempt to prescribe the form of GOD's service especially after the declaration which himself hath vouchsafed to make of his holy will nor is there one among men that would endure his servant should treat him in that manner and instead of obeying his Orders and causing others to dispatch them fall a Philosophising in his house and giving his Family a new rule to observe as if he were wiser than his Master I know well the authors of these Traditions and those that follow them are not without fine reasons to palliate their temerity But it is evident that they do the very same for substance neither is it to be doubted but a servant that should be culpable of such a vanity would alledg likewise his motive and designs to any that would give him audience But common sense dictateth to the meanest capacities that such undertaking-spirits merit not so much as to be heard especially where GOD is concern'd in comparison of whom they with all their sufficiency are but poor worms of the earth Hold we firm therefore this foundation of the Apostle That the Traditions of men ought to have no place in Religion It concerns me not to inform my self of their age whether they be the traditions of men ancient or modern It sufficeth that I know they are Traditions of men Having the Apostle's advertisement we should not be moved with any reason or splendor or antiquity they may come clothed with If you would have me receive them shew me that they are Prescriptions of GOD Institutions of his CHRIST Doctrines of his Scriptures Without this how specious soever you make them appear to me I shall ever believe it is but to make prey of me and your diligence shall have no effect but the making me suspect them so much the more In fine the Apostle addeth a third Source whence the Seducers drew both their Doctrine and the means to colour it namely that which he calls the Elements of the world I pass by the opinion of those who refer these words to the Elements of Nature Water Air Earth and Fire as if the Apostle here did tax these false Teachers of reducing the service of them which was then in full vogue among the Heathen these wretched Idolaters having yerst deified all the parts of the Universe There is not a word in S. Paul's Writings either here or elsewhere that leadeth us to such a conceit and it is not very likely that the persons he here aims at should authorize so brutal a kind of Idolatry persons who covered themselves with the Name of JESUS CHRIST and made profession at least in shew of retaining his Gospel It is clear that the Apostle in other places doth mean by the Elements of the world not these primigenial and more simple substances out of which all natural generations are framed but the ceremonies and carnal services of the Mosaick Law under which the ancient people lived until the revelation of the Messiah When we were children saith he Gal. 4.3 9. and you know he calleth all that time the Childhood of the Church wherein it was under the Pedagogie of Moses we were in bondage under the elements of the world and a little after in contempt he stileth them poor and weak elements whereto the Galatians would embondage themselves Now it is evident the error of the Galatians was that they would still be subject to the Ceremonial Law Here beneath the Text he useth the same word in the same sense If you be dead with CHRIST saith he unto the elements of the world why are you burden'd with Ordinances There is then no doubt but that in this place he doth in like manner signifie still the same thing by these words that is to say the observations and devotions of the Ceremonial Law And in effect we shall see hereafter that these seducers whom he combateth in this Chapter would hold fast that Law either in whole or in part subjecting the faithful to circumcision and divers regulations about meats and days S. Paul calleth them Elements or as our Bibles have rendred it in some places the rudiments of the world because they were the first and the lowest lessons the Church had during the time of its Childhood they were as its Alphabet For the word Elements is often so taken namely for the first lessons wherein they are taught to know their Letters which are also call'd Elements because in speech words are made up of them even as natural bodies are formed of those first and more simple substances which we properly call Elements And he calls the Jewish Church the World because its estate and its
other But now the LORD JESUS hath abrogated this adhering to places to times and to the elements of this world as a low and childish exercise and appointed for his people a service altogether spiritual and divine proportioned to that admirable light of knowledg which he hath shed into the hearts of the faithful a service that wholly consisteth in love to GOD charity and beneficence towards our Neighbour and in honesty and purity in respect of our selves This is the true service of the Deity worthy of man that presents it and of GOD that receives it since man is a reasonable Creature and GOD a Spirit infinitely good and holy according to what our Saviour addeth that the Father seeketh such to worship him and that being a Spirit they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth But though this kind of service be so just and so rational in its self and though the LORD JESUS have so clearly instituted it by his Divine Authority yet on the other part the inclination of our nature is so violent towards gross and earthly things that even among those who make profession of acknowledging JESUS CHRIST for the Son of GOD a multitude is found that cannot let go these bodily exercises in which a part of Divine Service did heretofore consist The Apostle testifies in divers places that there were such in his time 1 Tim. 4.3 and he advertiseth us in others that there would also be such in after-ages and the event hath precisely answered his prediction an evident sign it was the Spirit of Truth that is the Spirit of GOD which illuminated his understanding and caused him to see in those days things hidden in a time to come so far beyond the reach of the natural sight of men It 's against these people that he laboureth in this Chapter for to defend from their abusing them not only the Colossians to whom he writes but also the faithful of all Ages He laid firm and unmovable foundations of the truth in his foregoing discourse and the same as his manner is with great strength and glorious evidence shewing us that we have all those advantages plentifully in JESUS CHRIST upon pretence of which error would introduce its inventions and carnal observations that in him we have all fulness necessary to compleat us that his Resurrection and his Spirit do divest us of all the vices of the flesh and that his Cross doth give us full remission of our sins since it hath both made void the obligation concerning all the punishments we owed to Divine Justice and triumphed of all those powers that were capable of accusing or tormenting us Whence it clearly followeth that it 's a vanity for any to go about to oblige us unto legal and material observations seeing that we most perfectly have in the death and resurrection of our LORD all that sanctification and justification for the advancing of which it is pretended that these things do serve This is Dear Brethren the direct conclusion that the Apostle doth now deduce from that excellent and divine Doctrine which he established afore Therefore saith he let no man condemn you in meat or in drink or in the distinction of a festival day or of a new moon or of sabbaths Which things are shadows of those that were to come but the body of them is in CHRIST He first forbids them to suffer themselves to be put in subjection to these legal things and next he brings them a reason for it taken from their nature for that these things were but shadows of which JESUS CHRIST hath exhibited to us and given the true body These shall be by the will of GOD the two points we will handle in this Exercise observing in the one and the other of them what we shall judg conducible to your edification Those Seducers whom the Apostle opposeth in this place had drawn the devotions which they would add to the Gospel partly from the Mosaical Law partly from Heathen Philosophy and partly out of their own imagination whence it comes that in one of the precedent Verses he advised the Colossians to beware that no one made a prey of them by philosophy and vain deceit Col. 2.8 after the tradition of men and the rudiments of the world They had borrowed from Moses circumcision and the distinction of meats and days They had beg'd from the Schools of Philosophy the worshipping of Angels and the vain discourses wherewith they colour'd over this abuse and they had invented of themselves certain austerities and pretended mortifications of which they made great account in Religion See I beseech you what an heap of strange things the Spirit of Superstition did even at that time thrust into Christianity that you be not amazed if men in so many ages as have rouled down since those days pursuing the same design unheeded according to the passion of their flesh have by little and little quite fill'd up Religion with the like services and observations and as it were foul'd and dirted that pure and clear Fountain of our Saviour's Discipline with the dregs and sediment of their inventions For if flesh had the impudence to promote such abuses during the lives and under the eyes of the Apostles how much more would it have the boldness to enterprise and facility to execute it during the night of so many ages which were not only destitute of the light of those great Tapers but also overspread with the darkness of grossest ignorance But let us see how S. Paul condemneth the Traditions of those of his age to the end we may preserve our selves from those of our own by the example and authority of his Doctrine He spake before of circumcision to which they would have had Christians still submit themselves He now takes to task their other abuses and first the distinction they made of days and of meats and next in the verses following their Doctrine touching Angels and the worship they gave them and last of all their Disciplines and Mortifications from the 20th Verse to the end of the chapter We will see by the grace of GOD the two other parts of His dispute each of them in its place As for the former the Apostle taxeth here two sorts of destinctions or observations which these men made in religion the one of meats the other of days And as to the latter he noteth particularly and by name some of the days which they observed to wit Festivals new Moons and Sabbaths But about the other he expresseth himself in general only saying simply Let no man condemn you in meat or in drink without declaring particularly the kind of meat or drink which they prohibited or permitted so as the Apostle not telling it us and we having no light in it neither any other way it is not easy for us to know precisely what the meats were the distinction whereof these people did set up For first the Law of Moses whence they
pleasuâ—â— by an humility of spirit and the service of Angels intruding into things which be hath not seen being rashly puffed up with the sense of his flesh Dear Brethren Here is a notable sentence pronounced which overthrows in express words all the worship that the superstition of men whether ancient or modern doth attribute unto creatures it being clear that there is not any one of them whom we may lawfully serve in Religion since the Apostle forbiddeth us to serve the Angels themselves who are without difficulty of all creatures the most excellent You know the interest we have in this cause those of Rome anathmatizing us in it under colour that content to adore and serve GOD our Creator and Redeemer only we refuse to render unto Angels and Saints departed that Religious Worship and those Divine honours which they decree and deferr daily to them to the great prejudice of the glory of GOD and the irreparable offence of men Let us therefore exactly consider this Oracle of the holy Apostles and that we may leave nothing in it behind us we must see first what the Doctrine of those Seducers is which he condemneth He expresseth it in these words Let 〈◊〉 man master it over you by an humility of spirit and the service of Angels and then we are to examine in the second place the marks he gives these false Teachers which are contained in the following words intruding into things he hath not seen being rashly puffed up with the sense of his flesh and not holding the head But we will satisfie our selves for this time with the former of these parts remitting the second to another opportunity by reason of the cavils and inventions our adversaries make use of to corrupt this passage which we must refute as briefly as we can The word that S. Paul useth at the entrance and which we have translated Master it is difficult and seldom found in the Authors of the Greek Tongue S. Hierom one of the learnedst of the ancients sayes Ep. ad Alg. 9 10. it was peculiar to the Country of Cilicia whereof S. Paul was as being born at Tarsus the Capital City of that Proviâ—ice However it be the derivation of the word is clear and doth sufficiently discover what is well-nigh its signification For such as understand the Greek do know that this term comes from another which signifies the reward that was given to those who won the victory in those games or combats for prize at which certain Judges and Moderators did at that time preside who had the superintendance of the whole action regulating and bounding the race assigning the ground and receiving the Champions into it judging of their courses and combats proclaiming that man victorious to whom they yielded the advantage and solemnly putting a Crown upon his head Whence it comes that themselves were called by a name that signiâ—ies Givers of the reward and the term which signifies what they did on such occasions is generally used to express governing regulating ruling and having the superintendance of a matter It is expresly from this term that that which the Apostle useth here is formed saving that it seems to signifie governing and ordering not simply but to the prejudice and damage of the concerned Therefore some have thought that S. Paul comparing here the Faithful unto Racers or Combatants as he very often doth elsewhere does exhort them not to let the prize or reward of the Victory to be taken from them by the artifice of Seducers who made it their business to turn them out of the true and lawful lists of their race which are no other than believing and obeying the doctrine of the Gospel and make them enter into another carriere to wit that of their own inventions and services in the same sense that he elsewhere said to the Galatians who were abused by a like imposture Gal. 5.7 Ye did run well who did turn you aside that you should not obey the truth If this exposition were adapted as well as to the Apostles phrase as it is to his sense it would be excellent shewing us that I may say it by the way how this serving of Angels here forbidden us is an error of no small importance since it maketh those who turn aside unto or employ themselves in it to lose the prize of their Heavenly calling The Latin Interpreter Canonized by those of Rome having respect to the effect of such false doctrine which is a driving of the faithful out of the right way doth Translate it simply Let no man seduce you There is no need to report the thoughts of all others But I do affirm that there can be hardly found an expression more proper more commodious and according better with either the term or the scope of the Apostle then that of the French Bible Let no man master it over you which doth naturally express the magisterial authority that these Seducers assumed to themselves enjoyning and commanding their fancies to the faithful as if they had been installed Superintendants of their Religion and their lives and willing them to understand that without practising what they prescribed it was not possible to obtain the prize of their high calling Wherein the Apostle giveth them a blow and renders them ridiculous as men who having in truth no lawful authority would yet make it be believed that they had and did speak and command with as much confidence as if it belonged to them to distribute the Crown of Heaven at the last day or that they had it already in their hands to impart it to whom it should seem them good But that which S. Paul addeth doth discover their folly much more let no man saith he master it over you at his pleasure or at his will which may be referred either to their office or to their Doctrine or as I think to them both To their Office meaning that they are voluntary Superintendents and that their own will alone not the voice of GOD or men did elevate them to this pretended Mastership well night as the Roman Orator calls a certain man a Voluntary Senator who did thrust himself into the rank of the Senators but had no right to be there having been elected only by himself But this respects also their Dectrine and signifies that the serving of Angels which they commanded was founded meerly on their own good-pleasure and not upon any precept of GOD that their will alone was the reason and ground of it not the will of the LORD that it was nothing but an imagination of their own head and a fruit either of their melancholy or their malice Whence we may observe by the way That those that teach in the Church ought to set forth nothing but what is founded on the word of GOD. Isa 8.20 To the Law and to the Testimony but if they speak not according to this word of a truth there shall be no morning for them This rule is enough to
be more accessible unto us Joh. 14.1 6. Eph. 3.12 He proclaimeth in a thousand places that He is the way the truth and the life and that no man cometh to the Father but by Him that it is He by whom we have boldness Mat. 11.28 and access with confidence by faith in Him He calleth us unto Himself Come unto me saith He and I will give you rest And His Ministers do not only permit us to go to Him Heb. 4.16 they command and press us to do so Let us go say they with boldness to the throne of Grace that we may obtain grace and mercy to help in time of need Insteed of obeying these holy and divine calls of GOD and His Ministers you say No I will not do it I am not so presumptuous as to go either to GOD or to His Son I must beg the intercession of Angels and Saints to present me before that supream light In conscience is not this an exalting of your self above GOD Is it not a presuming that you know better than He what belongs to your duty and His service Is it not an hiding under the fine words of a feigned humility plain rebellion and disobedience to His Holy Majesty which is in effect the highest pride a creature can be guilty of since it is at the bottom a pretending that you are wiser than He and that the way He prescribes you is neither so good nor so reasonable as that which you have chosen But let us forbear any further arguing For where the Apostle speaks there is no need that we should discourse His authority relyes not on the succour of our reasons Here you see it is express against our adversaries corrupt usage He formerly condemns the thing they do For they approve and daily practise this service of Angels which S. Paul forbids us and ground it upon that same humility of spirit the pretexture whereof He hath voided and destroyed becoming doubly culpable both for rebuilding if I may so say this Jericho of superstistition which he hath domolished and for employing in it the very stones which he hath blasted from Heaven What can error say against so clear a determination By what charms can it turn away this flash of lightning from falling on its head Dear Brethren it is too much in love with its own inventions to give glory to GOD and will rather renounce His word than quit its superstitious imaginations In the present matter seeing its self pressed it hath recourse to subtilty and though it both maintain and practise the worshipping of Angels and cannot deny but 〈◊〉 the Apostle condemns those who teach and practise it yet it pretends with an 〈◊〉 â—ible boldness that it is not it the Apostle doth condemn It hath turned its 〈…〉 ways to effect this illusion all which to say the truth have more hardi 〈…〉 in them And to begin at this one the famousest of its last Advocates 〈…〉 â—ink ill satisfied in his conscience with the subtilty of his fellows hath bethought himself of a new gloss unheard of till now in all the Schools of Christianity both antient and modern born of his own conceit alone a very fruitful breeder of such productions and begotten by meer despair of his bad cause Du Perron in His Repl. to K. James p. 909. This man then affirms that S. Paul doth mean by the service or religion of Angels not as all the Fathers and all the Modern have believed the worshiping of Angels but as he all alone will have it the Law of Moses First the novelty of this gloss and the very consideration that for the space of neer sixteen hundred years not so much as one single man hath been found that was aware of it doth sufficiently shew that it is the heat of disputation and not the truth of the thing which suggested it to the author of it and the maxims of his Church he doth evidently renounce too which willeth that Scripture be not interpreted but by the Fathers whereas he laying by their exposition brings in one here that is not only undiscernable in any one of them but also directly contrary to the most Chrysoâ—â— Thâ—odoret Oâ—â—umâ—â— Tâ—â—â—philact and most renowned of their number who do understand these words of the Apostle of the worship done to Angels by those Seducers whom S. Paul doth in this place oppose But I say moreover that it is for good reason that no man ever thought upon it since in very deed it is not maintainable nor can be at all accorded either with the Apostles words or with his scope and design Not with his words for they must be interpreted according to the stile of the Authors of that tongue wherein he writes Now there are but two or three places in Scripture where the word used by the Apostle doth occur so construed as it is in this place One is in S. James Jam. 1.26 If any man among you saith he seems to be religious and bridles not his tongue but deceiveth his own soul that mans religion or service is in vain Another is in the book of the Acts where S. Paul saith that from the beginning he lived a Pharisâ—e Act. 26.5 after the accuratest sect saith he of our religion The word is found again so construed in the book of Wisdom held for Canonical by our adversaries and which though it be not such indeed yet is writ in Greek with the same language and the same stile that the Books of the New Testament are This author then makes use of the word in the same manner Wisd 4.27 The abominable service saith he or religion of idols is the beginning the cause and the end of all evil In all these places the religion or the service of any one doth signifie either the service he does to some other as in the two former passages or the service that is done to him by others as in the latter of them Here therefore except you think the Apostle swerved from the stile wherein he wrote the service or religion of Angels must of necessity signifie one of those two things either the service which the Angels do perform to GOD or the service which men perform to them The first of these two senses cannot take place by the confession of our adversaries themselves and of every sober person They must then necessarily admit the second and confess with us and with all the Ancients that by the service of Angels S. Paul intends not the Jewish religion or the Law of Moses but the religious service which these Seducers rendred to Angels under pretext of humility Moreover in what Prophet in what Apostle in what rational Author either Antient or even Modern have these men ever found this novel and extravagant manner of speaking the service of Angels that is to say the Jewish religion Verily it is called the Law of GOD because GOD instituted it the Law of Moses because
Moses was the Mediator and Minister of it the religion or service of the Jews because that people made profession of it the elements or rudiments of the world because it contained but the Alphabet and the first and lowest lessons of piety and was affixed for the most part to the corporeal things of this world But that it was ever called the religion or service of Angels we read not And as for that which those people do alledge out of â—â—â— Epistle to the Galatians namely Gal. 3.19 Heb. 2.2 that the Law was ordained by Angels in the hand of a Mediator and its being called in the Epistle to the Hebrews the word spoken by Angels this I say doth not justifie their pretention at all For in these two places the Apostle does declare only the service which the Angels did to GOD when He gave the Decalogue upon Sinai where these heavenly Ministers accompanied Him and ordered all the Pomp of that admirable manifestation of His forming the lightnings and the thunders wherewith the Mountain did resound elevating in the air the smoke and darkness which covered it shaking its foundations and making all of it to tremble and distinguishing the thunders into those articulate words which the mouth of GOD it self pronounced So far did the operation of Angels extend and no further For as to the rest it was GOD that spake in His own Person I am said He at the beginning the LORD thy GOD and that gave and uttered all the other precepts which the Israelites heard so as the Law or the religion which He then established might well be termed the religion or the service of GOD. But it would be an evident injuring of His Majesty to call it the religion or the service of Angels since it was given neither in their persons nor by their mediation Besides though it were otherwise in this particular yet it is clear that this title would be proper to the Decalogue only and not reach that part of the Law which is called Ceremonial in the establishing whereof the Angels did not intervene at all GOD having delivered it immediately to Moses and Moses to the Israelites and yet it would be this precisely that S. Paul should understand here if His purpose were to speak of the Mosaical Law as our adversaries believe Since then this name The religion of Angels can no way belong unto it it must of necessity be asserted that it is not the Law of Moses that the Apostle means in these words But his design and the thread of his discourse is no less opposite to this gloss than his words For first having already refuted what the Seducers took from the Law of Moses in the verse immediately foregoing in these words Let no man condemn you in meat or in drink or in the distinction of feasts or of new Moons or of Sabbaths which are shadows of things to come whereof the body is in CHRIST having I say so magnificently deposited this for what cause or to what purpose should he go repeating the same again How should the Apostle be capable of such vain babling Let us say then that the errour he rejects here is diverse from that which he condemed just afore That which he condemned afore is the observation of the Jewish law or religion certainly then this is not the thing meant in this place Besides that which he addeth can no way refer unto it Let no man saith he master it over you by humility of spirit and the service of Angels intruding into things he hath not seen Where the Apostle evidently sheweth that the service of Angels enjoyned by the Seducers was founded upon hidden things and such as they could have no knowledge of either by their own reason or by Scripture whereas the Jewish Ceremonies are so clearly and so distinctly explained in the books of Moses that there is not a man but may see them there Lastly the Apostle shews us at the beginning of this discourse that these Seducers had drawn some of their observances from Philosophy which will not find place if by the service of Angels you understand the Jewish religion which as all know was delivered by Moses and not by the Philosophers 〈◊〉 p. 910. For whereas our adversaries understand the discourses of the Jews by the vain deceit of Philosophy this is absurd and rediculous in the highest degree it being evident that the Jewish Doctors are sometimes called Sages 1 Cor. 1.20 and their science wisdom as when S. Paul saith Where is the wise GOD hath made foolish the wisdom of the world But never are they called Philosophers or their Doctrine Philosophy These names being every where constantly referred to the learned men of Greece and of the Heathen and unto their Doctrine Be it then concluded in fine that the Apostle means here by the religion or service of Angels not the religion delivered to the Jews by Moses but the worship and invocation and service which these Seducers would have men address unto Angels under pretext of humility they having drawn this abuse out of the Greek Philosophers in whose Books it is still found to this day Plato one of the chief of them writing expresly that service must be done to the Daemons so called they the Angels as holding a middle place between the GODS and men and serving us for Interpreters to the Divine Nature and all his School hath â—ver thus hold and practised as doth appear by the works of the latest of his disciples And this abuse was common among all the heathen They founded it too just as the Seducers here taxed by the Apostle did and as our Adversaries do upon pretended humility of Spirit Aâ—b os p. 1807. c. 4.5 as we understand by an ancient commentary upon the Epistle to the Romans published under the name of S. Ambrose The Author speaking of the Heathen of his time sayes They are wont to make a miserable excause saying that by means of them that is of the petty Deities they served they might go to GOD as men come to a Prince by means of His Counsellors of State and His Masters of Requests But saith he a little after men go to a King by means of His Officers because after all a King is a man that knoweth not whom he may trust with His estate whereas GOD is ignorant of nothing and knoweth the disposition and actions and capacity of all men so as to obtain His favour we want not the suffrages of an Interposer there needs but a devout soul Such a one He will surely hear wheresoever he speaks to Him It 's from the sinks of this Philosophy of the World that the Seducers here opposed by the Apostle had drawn their pretended humility and their serving of Angels And our Adversaries well perceiving that for the main it cannot be denyed but such was the doctrine here condemned by the Apostle do advance another phancy of theirs telling us that in his
universal and eternal and that no Age nor Climat can dispense with men for them or exempt the Violaters of them from that righteous curse they threaten let us faithfully obey this holy and sacred order which the Apostle hath given Hearken we not to the vain glosses and frivolous distinctions by which humane subtilty endeavours to elude it and colour over its own abuses Observe we sincerely what this great Minister of JESUS CHRIST enjoyneth us He forbiddeth us to Worship Angels in point of Religion There is no reason that either the eloquence or the subtilty either the splendor or the power of men much less their pleasure and usurped domineering should have more efficacy upon us than this Heavenly Authothority And praised be GOD for that He hath given us the courage to obey His Apostle in this particular and to put away the Worshipping of Angels and men from among us notwithstanding the strong contradiction of flesh and blood Let us abide firm in this resolution Let us adore none but GOD since there is none adorable but He. It 's just that He alone should be served among us since it is He alone who hath created and redeemed us But Beloved remember I beseech you that rightly to render Him His due glory it is not sufficient to have renounced the errour of those ancient Phrygians whom the Apostle here opposeth and of our Adversaries of Rome to wit the adoration of Angels and men departed There must also be banishing of all strange service all Idolizing of any thing whatever For if GOD cannot suffer those who serve Angels and deceased Saints that is the most excellent natures that be and such as have the image of the Deity most clearly resplendent in them how much less will He endure those that adore Gold and Silver the excrements of the earth or their own belly the shamefullest and most infamous of all idols or the flesh which is but a vain and perishing figure or the grandeurs of the world which are but exhalations And we that have renounced the first fort of these false services how can we be excusable if we retain and exercise the second Now would to GOD we were as free from the one as we are from the other But it must be confessed to our shame these latter kind of Idols have still a great many Devoto's and Servitors among us That avarice which S. Paul calls an Idolatry is but too much exercised among us the flesh and vanity are here publickly served Wretched men where is your judgement You do not serve the Angels of Heaven and you serve the mettals of the earth You do not adore Spirits made perfect and you do adore profane flesh Neither the light of the Sun nor the brightness of the Moon hath been able to seduce your hearts and you have suffered your selves to be seduced by the glittering of Gold and Silver the false Sol and Luna of the Chymists You have put your hope in Gold and said unto fine Gold Thou art my confidence You that have disdained to put your confidence in Saints The belly with shame and horrour do I utter it the belly is your GOD yours who have made this glorious promise to have none but the Eternal only for your GOD How can you hope that the LORD should suffer you to give Him such Monsters for companions He who is so jealous of His glory that He cannot suffer the Angels themselves to be associated with Him Dear Brethren I pray let us deceive our selves no longer Let us once for all put clean away all these false services and exterminating every Idol from among us adore and serve none but GOD alone Let Him have the entire possession of our whole hearts let Him reign and exercise an absolue dominion in them governing all the sentiments and motions of them at His will that after having constantly adored Him in Spirit and in truth we may one day receive from His holy faithful hand the Crown of Glory and Eternity which He hath purchased for us by the merit of His only Son our LORD JESUS CHRIST To whom with Him and the Holy Spirit the true and only GOD blessed for ever be honour and praise unto Ages of Ages Amen THE XXIX SERMON COL II. Vers XVIII XIX Vers XVIII Let no man Master it over you at his pleasure by humility of Spirit and the service of Angels intruding into things he hath not seen beeing rashly puffed up with the sense of his flesh XIX And not holding the head from which the whole body being furnished and fitly knit together by joints and bands encreaseth with the encrease of GOD. DEAR Brethren The same pride that destroyed the first man at the begining is the cause of the ruine of such of his posterity as do perish For if you heed it well you will see that that 's the thing which maketh them despise or mis-embrace the CHRIST of GOD in whom alone stands our salvation It was pride that kept the Jews from embracing this singular gift of Heaven because saith S. John they lov'd the praise of men even as our LORD reproached them saying How can you believe seeing you seek honour one of another And S. Paul expresly informs us that the proud phancy they had to establish their own righteousness was the cause they submitted not to the righteousness of GOD. It was likewise pride that blinded the minds of the Gentiles so as they saw not the wonderful things of the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST The haughty opinion they had of their own vain wisdome induced them to disdain the wisdom of GOD and to account the Cross of His Son foolishness though it be an inexhaustible treasury of sapience Again in fine it is pride that hath seminated among Christians themselves all the heresies that have grown up into any request since the Churches nativity to this hour Ignorance animated with presumption hath brought them all forth and bred them up For if the unhappy workers that divulged them had kept to the doctrine of GOD and not lash'd out beyond what He hath revealed in His word if the vain fierceness of their Spirit had not emboldned them to enterprise things above the reach of men they would never have thought upon corrupting Religion with their falsly-subtil inventions It would have remained pure throughout and sincere to this day and such as the Ministers of our LORD and Saviour deliver'd it at first to their Disciples by word and writing But their pride mis-leading them did induce them to attempt things above their capacity and adore and spread abroad their presumptuous imaginations as true secrets of GOD. The Apostle informs us in this Text that this was the origine in particular of those errors and false services which certain Seducers went about to introduce at that time among Christians We heard in the last exercise upon this subject what their errour was namely that under colour of a false humility of Spirit they taught
Philosophers defined good by this its refâ—â—â— to our affections and by the vertue it hath to move and attract our desires 〈◊〉 Good is that which all desire And hence it comes that Impostors who 〈◊〉 trade of seducing men have alwaies taken a great deal of care to give their 〈◊〉 vain institutions some shew of goodness being not ignorant that witho◠〈◊〉 they should not be able to gain any mans affections and much less to have any train of followers in the world This is to be seen particularly in religion into wâ—â—â—n never was heresie nor superstition introduced but under the favour of this in posture though spirits of different capacities having medled in the matter there haâ—â— been accordingly a great difference between their cosenages For as those that would make a false stone pass for a Diamond or an Emerald or a Ruby do endeavour as farr as cunning is able to counterfeit the truth to give it the colour the shape the lustre the sparkling and other qualities thereof that by such a feigned resemblance they may deceive simple and unexperienced persons So they that have set themselves upon the corrupting of Religion to the end they might make the opinions and services they promoted be received for sound doctrines and disciplines have above all things taken a great deal of pains to guild over their merchandize and to colour it with some fair and specious pretexts fit to dazle the eyes of men and hide the defects of their doctrine and give it the shew of what in substance it is not It is this that the Apostle S. Paul doth observe here in the documents and commandments of those Seducers whom he undertook in this Chapter For having solidly and admirably refuted that superstitious discipline which they had set a foot and which consisted in a religious worshipping of Angels and in a scrupulous abstinence from certain meats and in the observation of certain festival days for a conclusion he discovers in this last verse the false colours wherewith they did in vain dawb it over He acknowledgeth that it had its true some shew of wisdom but denies that this was sufficient to cover its defects or to oblige the faithful to receive it Their Ordinances said he afore are commandments and doctrines of men Which yet he now adds have some shew of wisdom in voluntary devotion and humility of spirit and in that they do not at all spare the body and have no regard to the satisfying of the flesh It is evident that he speaks of those humane doctrines which he had been mentioning in the verse immediately foregoing and he says first that they have a shew of wisdom Next he represents particularly three things which give them this false shew voluntary service humility of spirit and rough treatment of the body which they did not at all spare These are as it were the three colours which being mingled together by the artifice of the Seducers composed that paint which rendred their doctrine plausible and gave it this false shew of wisdom that beguiled the eyes of the simple In compliance with this distinction we shall treat of three points in this action voluntary service humility of spirit and little care for the body and then consider how error and superstition have always made and still to this day make use of them to glose their inventions GOD grant us to beware duly of them and please for this end so to guide and assist us by His Spirit in discoursing of them as we may all bear away some Edification and Consolation The name of wisdom is great and honourable in the opinion of all people in the world For whereas other Sciences have respect but to natural or humane the relation of wisdom is to Divine things And whereas other knowledges are for the most part unprofitable to him who possesseth them that of wisdom is salutiferous it signifying the skill of conducting ones way aright for the attainment of happiness by the light of some choice and excellent verities Whence it follows that this title of wisdom doth not properly belong but to the knowledge of GOD which He hath given us by His Son in the Gospel the only light that is capable of conducting us to supreme felicity Accordingly you know it is the name that S. Paul does ordinarily give it as when he willeth that the word of GOD dwell richly in us in all wisdom and when he saith elsewhere that he speaks wisdom among them that are perfect calling the same a little after the wisdom of GOD in a mysterie the hidden wisdom and so often elsewhere Now though the doctrine of those who corrupt the Gospel as these Seducers did who S. Paul opposeth in this Chapter be nothing less in reality than wisdom yet so it is that its authors gave it the name and would have it pass in the belief of men for a rare and a beneficial knowledge more worthy of heaven than earth and capable in fine of rendring those that follow it perfect and happy The Apostle acknowledgeth that the doctrine of the Seducers of his time had this shew of wisdom but by his very granting them the shew hâ— denies them the truth of it and his meaning is that that doctrine of theirs had nothing but a false and a deceitful colour of wisdom not the substance and reality of the thing Voluntary service is the first particular that gave these doctrines of the Seducers such a shew They have saith the Apostle some shew of wisdom in voluntary service that is by reason or because of the voluntary service they taught and set a foot the observances and institutions which these men enjoyed as abstinence from certain meats the worshipping of Angels and the like being nothing else but voluntary services A service may be called voluntary two manner of waies First when he that performs it unto GOD doth it with affection and a good will without torment and constraint The love he bears this great and soveraign LORD sweetly bringing his soul under His yoke and disposing him to account whatsoever He hath commanded to be good and delectable In this sense that free and sincere obedience which true believers render unto GOD according to the Gospel may be stiled voluntary because it proceeds not from a spirit of bondage as theirs doth who do serve only because they are afraid but from a spirit of Love and of Adoption crying in their hearts Abba Father Wherefore the Prophet termeth the new people who render this frank and filial service unto GOD Psal 110.3 under the Gospel of the Messiah a voluntary or willing people Thy people saith he speaking to Him shall be a voluntary people or a people of frank willingness in the day that thou shalt assemble thine army in holy pomp It is not in this sense that the Apostle understands the voluntary service he speaks of in this place For first though the terms voluntary service which are taken up
either by defect or excess do not render to their servants what is right as for instance those that overbear them with toil or strokes and they that quite contrary let them live idle and in debauches those that diet them ill or too well and lastly they that defraud them of their wages which is one of the most horrid and cruel acts of injustice that can be committed But besides right the Apostle would have Masters render also to their servants equity The word he makes use of in the original properly signifies a certain equality and correspondence that should appear between the offices of the one of them and the deportment of the other so that as the servant obeyeth in singleness of heart and in the fear of GOD the Master likewise do command holily and religiously and that as the one serveth with joy and respect in like manner the other do govern with mildness and affection In a word right comprehends all that refers to justice and equity all that pertains to Christian Charity and gentleness For the reducing of the faithful unto this holy moderation he orders them to remember that they also have a LORD in the Heavens His meaning is that the dominion they have over their servants is not absolute but dependant on GOD and by consequence such as ought to be regulated by His word and will If they have people beneath them they have a Master and a Soveraign above them who is the common LORD of them all and unto whom they are to give account of the treatment which their servants shall receive at their hands He says particularly that this LORD is in the Heavens to hold them the better to their duty by the consideration of so redoutable a Majesty who is not here beneath on earth the place of misery and vanity but on high in Heaven sitting on an eternal throne and from that glorious habitation of light and immortality doth consider and govern all things at His pleasure nothing coming to pass in His whole Empire but He plainly perceives and most justly judgeth of This great LORD is above all and there is neither Master nor Prince of such elevation among men but is under His feet He is superlatively holy just and good He loveth all His creatures and concerns Himself in the wrongs of the meanest and most contemptible ones hating nothing more than injustice and insolence outrage and cruelty possessing withal an infinite wisdome and an almighty power which none is able to resist Sure then consideration of the Empire and soveraign dominion that He hath over us is very proper to keep us within bounds and to restrain us from abusing the power He hath given us over persons subject to us nor could the Apostle put those that have servants in mind of any thing more pertinently that should oblige 'em to render them right and equity Thus we have explained his instructions It 's now for you Beloved Brethren to make your profit of them and to gather the fruits he offers you in them for the amendment of your lives and the consolation of your souls First Ye Christians whom the meanness of your birth or as they call it of your fortune hath reduc'd to the condition of serving rejoyce ye at the the honour done you by this great Minister of CHRIST who disdaineth not to address his holy voice unto you Set the care he hath of you against the contempt that men cast upon you Let his speaking to you comfort you and raise your hopes of the inheritance of GOD. Think well upon the report he makes you that the persons to whom ye are subject are not your Masters but in reference to the flesh Your servitude will not be eternal Nay it will not be very long nor extend further at most then to the end of that carnal life which ye lead upon the earth When this earthly tabernacle is once dissolved you shall enter into the glorious liberty of the children of GOD and then there will no more be any difference between you and your Masters For the present your better part is already in possession of this liberty namely that spirit which GOD hath formed in you after his own image and which maugre all the outrages of men will ever remain master of it self if you give it to JESUS CHRIST the great freer of mankind who doth faithfully and speedily enfranchise every one that receiveth and embraceth His truth Only take heed that ye abuse not His grace as if the spiritual liberty He hath gratify'd you with did discharge you from doing faithful service to your Masters after the flesh The more He hath illuminated you in the knowledge of Himself the more fidelity and love do you owe. For besides other reasons the fear of GOD and the will of JESUS CHRIST doth now oblige you to obey them so that the serving them makes up a part of your piety According to your acquitting your selves therein well or ill GOD will give you or deny you his inheritance But besides your own interest the glory also of the Gospel is concerned in the case For your faults defame our religion and make it believ'd to be a licentious discipline whereas your fidelity will produce us praise Every one will be constrained to acknowledge the sanctity of our doctrine when they shall see it reform the deportment even of man and maid-servants And this the Apostle doth expresly represent unto you elsewere Tit. 2.9 10. Let servants saith he be obedient to their masters pleasing them well in all things not answering again not purloyning but shewing all good fidelity that they may adorn the doctrine of GOD our Saviour in all things Object me not the ill humour and rigour of your Masters Remember the words of St. Peter 1 Pet. 2.18 who obligeth you to serve not only such as are good and equitable but also the froward Take their ill treatment for an occasion by which GOD would exercise and refine your faith Receive those strokes of the rod from His hand and not from theirs making them matter for your patience and a tryal of your faith Let the eye of JESUS CHRIST who looketh on you let His favour and benediction which always accompany conscionable sufferings let the hope of his inheritance for your Salary sweeten all the pains of your servitude How ingrateful soever men be to you your patience shall not be left unrewarded if ye persevere in it constantly for CHRIST'S sake And you Masters who so much desire to have faithful and obedient servants render ye to them that right and equity which the Apostle commands you Though your extraction or estates set you above them in humane society yet your nature is no other then theirs Ye are subject to the like infirmities with them One and the same death will consume you both nor will there be any difference between your dust and theirs You shall appear before the same Judge and the tribunal
your children and servants in the same devotion That there may not be a person within your doors but understands and exerciseth himself in this divine liturgie of all Christians Then take heed to acquit your selves in this duty as you ought that is to perform it with fervency attention vigilancy and perseverance to wash your hands in innocence to purifie your souls and bodies for the presenting them unto this supreme and most holy Divinity without offending His sight Ye know what the Prophets say of those whose hands are full of blood even that they are an abomination to the LORD that He is weary to bear them that He abhorreth their devotions and disdaineth their vain oblations that He hides His face from them when they dare stretch out their polluted hands unto Him and will not hear their prayers though they should multiply them to the utmost Wash you saith he make you clean Isa 1.11 seq take away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well seek judgement relieve the oppressed do right to the orphan debate the ease of the widow This Christians is the incense wherewith the LORD would have you persume your offerings of prayer that they may be pleasing to Him Hearken to His voice if you desire He should hear yours Obey the word of His Gospel if you would have Him receive the words of your supplications We complain that we have long prayed in vain But let us not disparage His veracity rather confess we have not prayed as we ought that is with such faith such repentance and amendment of life as necessarily should have accompanied these sacrifices Henceforth then for it is yet time turn ye unto Him with all your heart and lift up pure hands without wrath and doubting and vigorously persevere in this holy exercise with assurance that He will hear you But Dear Brethren among other things which you shall crave of GOD pray Him also for us that He would open us the door of the word to the end we may declare the mysterie of CHRIST and manifest it to you as we ought For if Paul a chosen vessel made and formed immediately by the hand of Heaven consecrated by CHRIST's own voice and fill'd with the treasures of His Spirit in all abundance did notwithstanding require the assistance of the Colossians prayers in the administration of this charge how much more is the succour of yours necessary for us for us I say who in comparison of him are but children We conjure you therefore both by the glory of our common Master and by the interest you have in His work that you never fail to remember us in your sacrifices of prayer but alwaies beseech this supreme LORD to perfect His strength in our weakness to give us a mouth fit to declare His mysteries and to purifie our lips as He sometime did His Prophets and untye our tongue as He did Moses's and fill our souls with that Divine fire which heretofore did in a moment form His Apostles clearing up our minds unto a distinct knowledge of His Gospel wisdom inflaming our hearts with the zeal of His house and cleansing them from the filth of all humane passions Now if the LORD inclined by the ardency and constancy of your prayers do vouchsafe to conferr upon us some small portion of His grace look ye on it as a thing that pertains to you a thing given to your prayer and for your edification Use it and make advantage of it Let it not be said that this great mysterie of CHRIST was declared unto you in vain and that it being manifested to you as it ought ye received it not as you should GOD keep you from such an unhappiness For how weak soever our preaching be it is notwithstanding sufficient My Brethren to render every one inexcusable who shall not have received it with faith neither your ears nor consciences being able to deny but that we declare unto you all the counsel of GOD in His Son JESUS CHRIST Let us all in common beseech Him to deal so graciously with the one and the others of us that all may rightly discharge their duty we speak unto you ye hearken unto us as is meet and that being knit together by a firm and indissoluble Charity we may prosperously advance His work in all sanctity innocence patience and constancy to the glory of His Name the edification of those among whom we live and our own salvation Amen THE FORTY SEVENTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. IV. VER V VI. Verse V. Walk wisely towards those that are without redeeming the time VI. Let your speech be alwaies with grace throughly tempered with salt that ye may koow how ye ought to answer every one DEAR Brethren while the Church of CHRIST is here on earth it 's condition is to sojourn for the most part amid people of another profession For though the merit of our LORD and Saviour be sufficient to bring all mankind unto the communion of GOD and though his salvation be tender'd by His own will and order to all those that have His Gospel preached to them yet so horrible is the obduration and blindness of our nature that the most of men abide out of the covenant of GOD wickedly and foolishly rejecting the great honour He offers them Divers whole Nations there are that irritated with the same fury have utterly shut the door against JESUS CHRIST refusing to suffer any of His servants within their coasts And even of those in which He hath some reception it is commonly but a little part that doth acknowledge Him the greatest and most considerable in the world persecuting Him or deriding His mysteries Not so much as private families but the Gospel sometimes makes this partition in The same roof often covereth persons of different religions 'T is a division which JESUS CHRIST hath raised in the world not that He positively willed and design'd it or that such is the nature of His doctrine neither of those doth properly tend but to unite all things and recombine Earth with Heaven in an eternal peace but it grows from the naughty and the cruel disposition of men who despise His counsel and disdain their own salvation Once by this means it com's to pass that the Kingdom of CHRIST remains as it were inlock'd with forcin States and His faithful ones mingled among persons of a contrary religion with whom this commune habitation doth of necessity oblige them to have much commerce This is the reason why the Apostle having regulated afore most of the duties of our life do's here in a few words point out in what manner we should converse with these aliens as to faith among whom we are dispersed And this advertisement was at that time the more necessary for that Christians in those beginnings which were as the nativity of the Church saw themselves environed on all sides with Jews and Pagans the two religions which then took
up the whole universe In a peculiar manner the Colossians to whom he writes this Epistle they dwelt in a City and a Province of which the people were much addicted to the most infamous of heathenish superstitions He commands them first in general to walk wisely towards those that are without and redeem the time Next he orders them in particular to have care of their speech one of the principal and most important pieces of the commerce we have with men Let your speech saith he be alway with grace seasoned with salt that ye may know how to answer every one This exhortation My Brethren doth well fit our selves and is proper for the condition we are in as who live under powers and among countreymen of a religion different from ours Let us consider it therefore and practise it with care To help you for a right understanding of it we shall if GOD will treat in the presentation of the two parts it containeth First our conversation with those that are without in general Secondly the qualities in particular which our speech ought to have in that converse noting to you upon each of 'em what we shall judge proper for your edification and comfort The Apostle's general exhortation consisteth in two heads the first is that we walk wisely towards those that are without the second that we redeem the time As to the first I presume you all know without my advertizing it that the Apostle here do's signifie by the word walking according to the ordinary stile of Scripture living and conversing and again that he means by those that are without such as are not of our communion but do in point of religion follow other sentiments and services then we profess to embrace in conformity to the Gospel of Jesus Christ He gives them the same denomination in another Epistle also where after his ordering us to shun the commerce and frequentation of some that are called brethren that is who make profession of our communion 1 Cor. 5.12 but mean while lead an ill and scandalous life he addeth For what have I to do to judge of them that are without He willeth then that we converse wisely with them that is that in all negotiation and conversing with them we exercise a great deal of prudence and circumspection Not that he permits us foolish and indiscreet deportment towards the faithful that are of the same body with us GOD forbid A Christian's whole life ought to be prudent and advised and whomsoever he converseth with he ought to govern his actions with judgment and do nothing without reason remembring the rule his Master gave him for the forming of all his carriage Be ye wise as serpents saith He and simple as doves But because they without are usually enemies to our religion and do detest or at least are ignorant of or despise its mysteries there 's none but sees that it concerns us in treating with them to use much more restraint and consideration then when question is of our brethren As when a Souldier is in an enemy's countrey he stands much more upon his guard and marcheth as they say with bridle in hand Besides you know if persons be but strangers we treat them with more care and if I may say it with more ceremony then our acquaintances A brother lives with us without design a stranger is a spy The one bears with even those actions of ours in which a severe Judge would find something to reprehend The other doth not pardon us any thing nay is offended sometimes at the innocentest actions Being perswaded of the charity of the former we live securely with him nor doth his person put us in pain because he approves all that accords with our rule With a stranger it is not so Besides the care we ought to have that in all transactions with him we do well we must also be further heedful that we so do all as may be to his gust It 's then with a great deal of reason that the Apostle advertiseth us as to those that are without to live and converse wisely with them in a particular manner that is to exercise in all our deportment towards them more attention prudence and consideration then in the other ordinary passages of our lives The first point of Christian wisdom in this deportment towards them is to observe the end it ought to be directed to The second to discern the persons And the third to chuse such means as are proper for our design As to the end whether an accidental encounter do cast us upon treating with such as are without or whether some design doth lead us to it we ought alway to aim in it either at the edifying and winning them to CHRIST or at the least to hinder their taking any offence or disgust at our religion In the commerce which the subjects of a civil state have with foreiners it is enough that they keep sound and entire the fidelity they owe their Prince and the love and respect they have for their Laws and Government of their own Countrey It is not necessary nor will it be suffered that they should attempt to withdraw a stranger from his subjection to that power under whose Scepter he was born because it 's a lawful subjection and whoever would unfix it do's intrench upon anothers right which cannot be done without injustice But in the matters of religion it is not so It 's not enough that you preserve your selves from theirs who are without you must endeavour if you can to draw them from it and bring them over unto yours For in this you do no one wrong you hurt nothing but errour nor diminish any's right but superstition's impiety's and Satan's the common enemy of Mankind who inspireth them You do not acquire any thing to JESUS CHRIST but what did lawfully pertain unto him since He of right is LORD of all men both by reason that He did create them and also for that he hath redeemed them You do an act of justice in reducing bond-servants under their true and lawful Master's yoke whom errour had debauched from it Thus as often as you treat with those that are without you ought to propose unto your selves the edifying of them in reference to religion and to have a will and a desire in your hearts like to St. Paul's wish for Agrippa and for the rest that heard him Act. 26.29 I would to God saith he that not only thou but also all that hear me this day were both almost and altogether such as I am except these bonds But it 's not enough to have a good end there must be an application of proper and fit means and for this effect the diversity of the persons with whom we have to do is to be heedfully considered For the same things do not suit with all Wisdom therefore being obliged to diversifie its conduct according to the difference of those with whom it treateth a Christian must
reason to take the pains himself to form our speech on such occasions namely when we are to entertain those without about our sentiments in matter of religion For certainly this is the tenderest part of all our converse with men and that which would be managed with greatest exactness It is a very slippery passage and the events frequently are of great importance and have long and considerable consequences for good and for evil according to mens different carriage in it And if there be any case in which the tongue hath any reason to vant of great matters Jam. 3.6 as St. James saith without doubt it is in this an answer here as it is qualified being capable of amending or empairing the condition of an whole Christian people a sage and moderate discourse having sometimes averted or stayd the persecution of the Church and appeased the rage of its enemies whereas on the other hand a speech though for substance true yet being indiscreet and ill-placed hath often inflamed the hatred of the mighty and troubled the Church's peace and caused a thousand disorders and devastations The Apostle then would have us on this occasion that is when we speak with those without more than on any other govern our lips with so much judgement that there may not a word break out but what is seasoned as it ought to be Let your speech saith he be alwaies with grace seasoned with salt He presupposeth in the first place and precedently to other things that it have its principal vertue to wit truth which is the soul of it according to that general rule he elsewhere gives us Eph. 4.25 to speak truth every one with our neighbour But in conjunction herewith his intention is that our speech have these two further qualities first that it be with grace and secondly that it be seasoned with salt The grace he requires in it is not that which is given to a discourse by the ornaments of Rhetorick which respecteth only the pleasing of the ear and consisteth in a choice of elegant words and in a sweet and grateful composition The grace a Christian ought to seek for and have in his speech is so to utter truth as it offend not the hearer that it express our minds without exulcerating his that it have neither gall nor venome nor virulency that it be simple humble and modest without reviling without scoffing and other such stings as may inflame those whom we speak to The other particular he addeth namely that it be well salted that is prepared and as it were seasoned with an exquisite prudence does referr to the same thing for substance For as salt doth desiccate meats and eat out the moisture and putrid humour of them leaving a sharpness in them pleasing to the taste so this Christian prudence which he would have all our speech imbued with works out of it all that it might have in it superfluous and noxious and tempers it in such sort that the sorce and vigour which it leaves it pleaseth the spirit and enters gratefully into it The masters of common Rhetorick would too that there be salt in their Scholars speeches But it is not that which must season a Christian's deliveries By this salt which they make such account of they mean certain pleasantnesses that border upon raillery and jesting Expressions that are quick but offend not and touch the Spirit but do not gall it We for our part do pass by this artifice and draw the salt wherewith our speeches are to be impregnated from a quite other vein even an holy Christian prudence which avoids all that may displease or scandalize our neighbour and chooseth what is proper to edifie him so seasoning discourse that nothing unsavoury or insignificant be uttered which might disgust him at our persons or our religion This salt cleanseth our talk first of all discourses that are either noxious and dangerous as those that lead to viciousness or vain and fruitless and secondly of all that may offend those we talk with and alienate them from our religion For this end that knowledge is necessary which the Apostle speaks of in the following clause that you may know saith he how ye ought to answer every one It 's clear that this grace of speech seasoned with salt doth not teach us how we ought to answer every one but on the contrary this science or knowledge when we have it seasoneth our speech with its necessary grace So that whereas the Apostle saith that ye may know it it must be understood of the event and success as if he had said let your speech be with grace and seasoned with salt so as it may appear you know how to answer every one Or the word know which he useth in the original must be taken for as knowing and as judging and discerning how we ought to answer every man First his calling our discourses an answering does intimate that we should not cast our selves upon such kind of conferences inconsiderately nor enter on them but with judgement and advisednesse being called to it either by some one's demand or by the voice of such a necessary occasion as obligeth us to speak Then again he shews us that we ought to diversifie our speech according to the difference of persons and in this it is that that discerning of persons which we touched at afore must do us service There are those to be met with whom it would be best not to speak to at all The dispositions of some may suffer a firm and free discourse The temper of others requireth a more soft and tender treatment As you see that meats for several bodies must be diversly prepared according to their different constitution so we should diversly season our speech according to the diversity of spirits Such Dear Brethren is the holy and wholsome lesson that the Apostle gives us in this place Practice we it diligently and regulate by it our speech and deportment in all the commerce we have with those without Hide we not our sentiments in religion from them but explain our selves to them in such a manner as may be proper both for their edification and our own satety First let us never speak of them but in season and when occasion offers its self for it do it with that gravity and decency that 's due unto so high and so important a subject Next let us take out of our speech all the stings that might incense those that hear us Let not it have in it any thing reproachful or offensive any thing that scenteth of hatred or contempt Let it be sweet and full of affection and respect Let it bear the image of a well-disposed and a truly charitable soul and breath nothing but the good and the edification of our neighbour And as for truths themselves let it discover and with full liberty expose such as are grateful to our adversaries as thanks be to GOD there are many in particular I make bold to
worship was gross and terrene and in some sort worldly in comparison of that of the new Isreal whom the LORD formed to worship GOD in spirit and in truth Whence it comes that he calls all the knowledg of the Jewish Rabbies 1 Cor. 2.6 8. the wisdom of this generation and those Rabbies themselves the Princes of this generation that is of this world Thus how hoary-headed and venerable soever the age of these rudiments of the world was the Apostle would not that the faithful should susser themselves to be taken under that pretence by those seducers that advanced the observation of them Behold what were those three colours wherewith these men be-painted their Doctrine The vain speculations of Philosophy The antiquity of Tradition and The authority of the Mosaical Ceremonies To which the Apostle adds and not after CHRIST By these very few words as with one blow he beateth down all the speciousness of these strange Doctrines Let men trick them up saith he as much as they will let them colour them with the subtilities of Philosophy let the practise of them be authorized by Tradition let them be recommended under the name of Moses and by the respect we owe to the rudiments of the former world all this hinders not but that we ought to despise them not only as unprofitable but even as dangerous since they are not after CHRIST He saith they are not after CHRIST First Because the LORD JESUS hath told us nothing of them in his Gospel whence it appears that we have good ground to reject from our belief all that is not found in the Scriptures of the New-Testament Secondly Because the Doctrine of JESUS CHRIST is wholly spiritual and celestial whereas those traditions and legal observations were gross and carnal And lastly Because besides their having no correspondency with the nature of the Gospel they do turn men aside from the LORD JESUS causing them to seek some part of their salvation otherwhere than in Him in whom it is so entirely seated as not the least drop of it is to be had in any other And what shew soever such as follow these Traditions do make of being resolv'd to retain JESUS CHRIST experience lets us see that they do but very slightly stick to him busying themselves wholly in the performance of their own devotions and placing the greatest part of their confidence in the same which comes from hence even that these are more grateful to them both for their novelty and for their being voluntary and indeed of less difficulty it being much easier to the flesh to acquit it self of some external and corporeal observances than to embrace JESUS CHRIST with a lively faith dying to the world and living unto him alone Thus you see what we had to say to you upon this advertisement of the Apostle's It is addressed to you also dear Brethren since you have adversaries who sollicite your belief in the same manner as those men did at first combat the faith of the Colossians They propose unto you the same errors and paint and gild them over after the same method with the vain colours of Philosophy with the plausible name of Tradition with the authority of Moses They are either Doctrines drawn forth from the speculations of Philosophers as the invocation of Angels and of Saints departed the veneration of Images the estate of souls in Purgatory and such like or humane Traditions as prayer for the dead Quadragesimal observances the Hierarchy the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome Monkery Single-life and others all crected by men without any foundation in the word of GOD. Or lastly they are Elements of the world ceremonial observances sometime instituted by Moses but abolished by JESUS CHRIST as the distinction of Meats Festivals Unctions Consecrations Sacrifice Fixation unto certain places and of all that we reject in our Doctrine there is not a particular but referrs to one of these three heads Remember therefore when they set upon you that the Apostle still to this day calls aloud from Heaven to you Take heed that none do make booty of you by Philosophy and vain deception after the tradition of men after the rudiments of the world and not after CHRIST Under these fair appearances there is hidden a pernicious design Men would take you away from JESUS CHRIST and make you a prey to and the Vassals of men Oppose to all their Artifices this one saying of the Apostle's That whatever the things which are enjoined you may be they are not after CHRIST they are not found in that Testament wherein he hath declar'd his whole will they have no conformity with the nature of his Gospel and do turn away the minds of men from that Soveraign LORD in whom alone is our wisdom and our righteousness our sanctification and redemption But Faithful Brethren as the Apostle's lesson should defend you from error so should it preserve you from vice Let that JESUS whom he so assiduously preacheth to you sill up your manners as well as your faith Love none but him as you believe in none but him Renounce the customs and vices of the world as well as its Religion Let the leaven of Philosophy have no more place in your actions than in your belief Receive the manners of men into your communion no more than the traditions of men If you be above the rudiments of the world be also above its infancy and its low and childish passions and affections they were sometimes pardonable in that childhood but are inexcusable in persons whom JESUS CHRIST hath advanced unto perfect men and such as by his illumination he hath brought unâ—â—fulness and maturity of age Let your souls henceforth have thoughts and aâ—â—ctions noble and heavenly and worthy of those high instructions which JESUS CHRIST hath given you Let your whole life be referr'd to him passing by the world and its elements this present generation and its lusts and idols with which the LORD JESUS doth not participate in any thing He hath crucified all those things for us and displayed before our eyes a new world brought forth out of the bosome of Eternity a world incorruptible and radiant with such glory as can neither be sullied or made to fade 'T is hither Faithful Brethren that you should elevate your desires This same is true Christian Discipline to dye with JESUS to this old world having no more sentiment or passion for its perishing-benefits and to live again with the same JESUS in that new world whereinto he is entred for us to breathe after nothing but its glory to think of nothing but its purity to rejoyce in nothing but in its peace and in the hope of its eternal pleasures To forgo for ever that which is passed and to tend with all our might towards the mark and price of our supernal calling justifying the verity of our Religion by the sanctity of our conversation so as there appear no more among us either ambition or hatred
or avarice or any of those loathsome defilements that do disfigure the whole life of worldlings The LORD JESUS who hath given us this excellent Divine Doctrine who hath founded it by his death and set it up by his resurrection who also hath in these latter times purged it afresh both of the vanities of Philosophy and of the traditions of men and of the elements of the world please to confirm us in it for ever by his good Spirit and to make it so efficacious for the sanctification of our life that after we have finished this earthly pilgrimage we may receive one day at our going forth of this vale of tears from his merciful hand the Crown of immortality which he hath promis'd and prepar'd for all true observers of his Discipline Amen The Twenty-first SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER IX Ver. IX For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily AS the Christian Religion doth consist in Principles and Practises incompably more sublime and salutiferous than any that the world ever learned in the Schools of Nature and the Law so was it delivered and instituted by an Author infinitely more excellent than any of those were who ever erected other Disciplines among men I will not insist upon the Authors of those various Religions which bore sway heretofore in the time of Paganism who though they were in esteem among Nations and raised to an high reputation of wisdom and vertue yet had the taint of an extream ignorance and vanity as their own Institutions sufficiently discover to any one that will take the pains to examine them in the light of Reason It would be injurious to the LORD JESUS the Founder and Prince of Christianity to compare him with such people But even Moses himself the great Teacher of the Hebrews and the Prophets who commented on explained and confirmed his Law are all insinitely beneath the dignity of this new Law-giver They were I grant Ministers of GOD the Mouth and Organs of his Majesty the Interpreters of his Will and Heralds of his Truth being endued as was suitable to so high Offices with an excellent sanctity a rare and extraordinary Wisdom and an heavenly Power which evidenced it self in them by miraculous effects But after all they were men and never pretended to be ranked above that feeble nature which was common unto them and us nor did receive any of those Honours which belong to the Divine whereas the LORD JESUS is so Man as he is likewise GOD blessed for ever and was so far from refusing Divine Honours that he hath expresly required them at our hands and enjoined us to adore him with the Father and to acknowledg him his Eternal Son This same difference the Apostle observes between the LORD JESUS and those other Ministers which GOD made use of in the former Ages God saith he having at sundry times and in divers manners in time past spoken unto the fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son Ebr. 1.1 Moses and the rest were Prophets of GOD JESUS is his Son The others were his Ministers JESUS is his Heir The others were faithful as Servants Ebr. 3.5 6. JESUS as Son is over the whole House In the others there did shine forth some marks of the commerce they had with GOD that Soveraign Majesty imprinting on their faces as upon Moses's in particular some sparklings of his glory But JESUS is His very Light the resplendency of his glory and the character of his Person Dear Brethren it doth highly concern us to know rightly this great dignity of our LORD and Saviour not only for the rendring to his Person the worship we owe him and of which we may not fail without offending the Father as himself hath told us John 5.23 He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father who hath sent him but also for our embracing with so much the more zeal the Religion he hath delivered us without ever admitting the perswasion that either men on earth or even Angels from Heaven can add any thing to the light the goodness and the perfection of the discipline of so great and so perfect an Author For this cause doth S. Paul here hold forth to the Colossians the Divinity of our LORD JESUS CHRIST In the precedent Verses he exhorted them to constant perseverance in the belief of his Gospel confirming themselves in it more and more and taking heed they gave no car to Philosophy and the vain traditions of seducers who endeavoured to corrupt sound doctrine by the mixing of divers inventions which they would add to it as if it were not perfect enough of it self to guide us to salvation The Apostle to bereave Error of this pretext and shew the faithful not only the sufficiency but even abounding of the Gospel represents unto them the soveraign perfection and divinity of its Author For in him saith he dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily Since you have JESUS CHRIST saith he there is no need of recourse to others In Him as in a living and inexhaustible spring is all good necessary to your happiness a divine Authority to found your Faith an infinite Wisdom to direct you in all truth an incomprehensible Goodness and Power to give you grace and glory a quickning Spirit to sanctifie and comfort you All other things compared to Him are but poverty and weakness See how the Apostle fortifies the faithful in the doctrine of the LORD and in few words overthrows all that the presumption of flesh and blood may dare to set up beside or against his perfect truth For a right understanding of his words we must consider them exactly For though the number of them be small their weight is great they are rich and magnifick in sense and do contain within their narrow compass one of the noblest and fullest descriptions of JESUS CHRIST that is found in Scripture Let us see then first what all this fulness of the Godhead is whereof the Apostle speaketh And then in the second place how it dwells in JESUS CHRIST to wit bodily The LORD please to conduct us by the light of his own Spirit in so high a Meditation that of his fulness we may receive grace for grace and draw from it what may fill our souls with that life and salvation which overfloweth in him and can be no where found at all but in him As for the subject it self whereof S. Paul speaketh and in which he saith that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth none can doubt but that it is our LORD JESUS CHRIST For having said at the end of the verse immediately foregoing that the traditions of men and rudiments of the world are not after CHRIST he now addeth For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead Whence it is clear that the LORD JESUS CHRIST whom he had even then named is the Person of whom he speaks and to whom he attributes
time there was a certain Sect which some call the Judaique Sect and others otherwise consisting of people who neither served GOD nor JESUS CHRIST but Angels under the quality of Chiefs and supream Patrons and Protectors of their Religion that it is at these S. Paul aimeth here and not at them who its true do serve Angels but do also serve GOD the Father and His Son JESUS CHRIST First all this Sect is an Idol which never had subsistence other-where than in their fond conceit neither could it indeed be any other where For if they were Jews who can believe that they served not GOD whose service the whole Judaical Law and Religion did expresly command throughout in the beginning in the middle and at the end Again if they were Christians how served they not JESUS CHRIST And if they were either Jews or Christians how did they own no other chief of their Relgiion then the Angels All this is nothing but a meer fiction of our Adversaries who endeavour to put a Changling upon us and do set up this chymera that it may take the blow which the Apostle dealeth them It is not lawful for us to forge Sects at our pleasure There must be proof of them produced from good and creditable witnesses if we would be believed about them But so far are they from having any warrant of this fine story in Antiquity that on the contrary the ancient Interpreters of the Apostle such as Theodoret Photius and Theophylact do overthrow it affirming that those whom S. Paul aimeth at alledged that GOD is great and incomprehensible and that it 's a thing unworthy of the Majesty of the Son to conduct so mean Creatures unto Him as men are whereupon they added that application must be made to Angels for our having access by their means and for the gaining of the favour and good-will of GOD. How did not they serve GOD since it was for access to Him and for the becoming gracious with Him that they employed the Angels interceding and how did they not adore JESUS CHRIST seeing they accounted themselves unworthy to go immediately to Him In fine how did they own the Angels for the supream Heads of their Religion seeing they made use of their intervention only for to come to GOD thereby 〈…〉 This very thing was the motive of their erring practice And of the fore-named Ancients adds expresly that the service they did to Angels was Praying to them as also this abuse reigned a long time in Phrygia and Pisidia and that â—ven in his dayes there were Oratories found Dedicated to S. Michael A relation 〈◊〉 which hath so stung one of the great Cardinals of Rome that all in Choler against this Author who lived almost twelve hundred years ago and was besides one of the greatest and most knowing spirits of Antiquities He saith with his leave he hath had ill luck in this particular Whence you may see the respect that these Gentlemen do bear the ancient Fathers whom they have perpetually in their mouth When they favour them they are Oracles If they speak otherwise their antiquity doth not sâ—ve them from being treated as ignorant and unlearned Now whereas they alledge the Apostle's saying of those he speaks of that they held not the head that is CHRIST JESUS I grant it But I affirm that this doth not interr they made profession of acknowledging Him not as from his saying that they were puffed up with the sense of their flesh and did intrude into things they had not seen it follows not that they did acknowledge either the one or the other of these things So far were they from it that they made profession of humility and it was under this very pretext that they would serve Angels and boast without doubt they did of knowing well the things that they divulged But the Apostle speaketh here of that which follows truly and ligitimatly from their doctrine and not of what they avowed For doubtless they made profession of JESUS CHRIST and of His Gospel and S. Paul doth clearly presuppose it through his whole discourse But by the addition of their errours they denyed in effect what they confessed with the mouth and by this serving of Angels took away from CHRIST the quality of being Head of the Church which in word they gave Him It 's this the Apostle here chargeth them withall and thereby foundeth evidently this maxime That whosoever takes the Angels or any other such whom you will for His Mediators and Intercessors with GOD he doth in effect renounce the Mediation of JESUS CHRIST and taketh from Him the glory He hath to be the Head of the Church This dignity no more admitting an associate then that of His Regality and being such as cannot be possessed by any one alone But why do I stand considering what the opinions of these false Teachers in other respects were Let them have believed whatever else you please sure it is they worshipped Angels and that S. Paul accuseth them of it and reprehends them for it and will not have the faithful follow them in this particular He doth not say that they were Sorcerers or Atheists that they did not serve or not invocate GOD and His Son JESUS CHRIST He saith they served Angels and takes them up for it extream sharply You do the same Judge then whether the Apostle's Thunder does not fall on you But you will say I do adore GOD and JESUS CHRIST In Conscience do you not mock the world in defending your self after that manner As if you were accused of not acknowledging the Divinity of the Father or of the Son and not of Worshipping Angels But it is alwayes the custome of these Masters to substitute one or other of the Ancients in their place when they are taken with transgressing the Ordinances of GOD and His Apostles The LORD forbids the bowing down ones self before Images They avow they do it but for all that do pretend that the Law Thundereth against the Heathen of former times and not against them S. Paul condemneth with heinous words such as enjoyn abstinence from meats They confess it is their practice but do add that it is the old Encratites and Montanists and Manichees whom the Apostle means and not they In like manner here being accused of worshipping Angels they franckly confess it yea boast of Worshipping them and Excommunicate us for that we do it not with them And whereas S. Paul protesteth so clearly that we must not serve them they pay us off with this brave excuse that it is not of them he speaks but of I know not what old race of Jewish Hereticks as if it were not manifest that he speaks in general of all those who at any time and in any place whatever do take upon them to serve Angels forbidding us under an heavy penalty to let them master it over us upon any pretext As for us Dear Brethren who do know that the Laws of GOD are
old man are left sound and whole to stretch out the one upon the ground and lye in ashes while the others are in pleasure It is not by an hair-cloth nor a whip that vices are subdued These things incommodate the body but do not sure amend the soul They humble the out-side they hurt not within But leave the old man there at full liberty with his thoughts and lusts And it is not without reason the Apostle advertiseth us else-where that bodily exercise profits little 1 Tim. 4.8 Experience hath justified his words the lives of those that addict themselves to such exercises being no better yea sometimes worse than the lives of others And it is not long ago The Jesuit Tetavius l. 5 c. 3. de la penit publique since Truth drew this confession from the penn of one of our greatest adversaries that such exercises do many times much hurt even mens spiritual advancement because of a secret opinionativeness and pride which they beget and feed in some spirits who become arrogant and haughty upon them and take occasion from them to contemn those that lead a more moderated life The Apostle therefore would have us instead of these childish and poorly profitable exercises to lay our our labour upon the mortifying of the members of the old man that is our 〈◊〉 And it is to the same intention of his that I referr what he addeth namely that these members are upon the heart which is a thing excellently noted what way soever you consider it For first these vices are all upon the earth if you respect either their rise or their business or lastly their end and desires It 's clear they all spring up out of the earth from admiration and coveting of earthly things they all creep on the earth in its excrements or in its fruits and rise no higher than its fumes and vapours wretchedly cleaveing to these sordid vanities which they feel to fleet away and perish between their hands while they gripe them and are enjoying them Where is covetousness Where is luxury Where is gluttony and ambition What seek they for What desire they For what do they toil themselves Sure you plainly see that the earth is their only element that the metal which the one desires and the flesh which the other longeth for and the messes that the third breaths after and the vanities that are the passion of the latter I say you plainly see that all this is but earth or fruits and productions of the earth They are then to say true these members of the old man that fasten us to the earth and not the members of this body it is sin and not simply this flesh For as to our body it needs but a little for its conversation during that little time we pass here below whereas the desires of vice are infinite Whence it follows according to the Apostle's conception that it is vice we are to mortifie and not the body the members of the old man and not those of the body Then again if you consider the place destinated to be the abode of the one and the other nature you will further see that the members of the old man that is vices are not but upon the earth It 's there they make their spoyl and exercise all their tyranny there they live there they dye there they rot unprofitably consuming themselves in their own wretched filthinesse They have no place in Heaven where enters nothing but what is pure where perfect sanctity liveth and reigneth eternally crowned with immortal glory But the members of our bodies which superstition fastens ou◠and ridiculously afflicts though they also be for present on the earth and have need of its elements yet they shall not remain there alwaies They shall be one day lifted up into the Heavens and enter into the Sanctuary of GOD and live on His manna and partake of the fruits of the coelestial tree of life Knowing now the meaning of this exhortation of the Apostle's you may easily of your selves without my saying any thing of it comprehend the connexion it hath with the precedent words which imported that we are dead and that our life is hid with CHRIST in GOD and that we shall one day appear with Him in glory For since we be dead to the world and called to the hope and the fruition of an heavenly life which is hidden on high in JESUS CHRIST and shall be one day manifested and given to each one of us who sees not that all this doth most strictly oblige us to draw off all our affections from the earth and to cut all the ties that fasten us unto it that is to mortifie our members which are on the earth all the vices that engage us and ensnare us in the things of the earth It remaineth that we consider the vices or members of the old man which the Apostle does particularly name and expresly injoyn us to mortifie He nameth five in all fornication uncleanness inordinate appetite evil concupiscence and covetousness I conceive that the four first are related to one and the same head and be but divers branches of one and the same stock to wit luxury or sensuality Fornication is the principal species of them the disorders whereof are so evident and so well known that no one can be ignorant of the nature of it Uncleannesse comprehendeth all the other ordures and pollutions that are contrary to the chastity and honesty of our bodies as incests violations and those other abominable furies of carnal passions which transgress even the laws of nature as corrupt as it is The word which we have translated inordinate appetite doth signifie literally perturbation or passion in the original tongue But it is frequently used to express the passion of lubrieity and the filthy disposition of a voluptuous and esseminate heart that easily receives the impression of all lascivious objects and abandons its self to these kind of pleasures and runs out and pours forth its self in a sort entirely to them Evil concupiscence which the Apostle addeth in the fourth place is the source or the root of all the vices of this sort For though concupiscence be often taken in general for all irregular appetites and desires whatever the objects are to which they are unduly carried yet it sometimes signifies those in particular which respect the pleasures of the flesh and we often use the word concupiscence in this sense in our vulgar language Nevertheless I grant that in this place it may be taken in a larger extent as importing inordinate coveting either of pleasures or of profits and riches because the Apostle speaks here of covetousness also and not of sensuality alone He calls this concupiscence evil to distinguish it from that which keeping within its just bounds desireth things lawful in a due manner and measure The last of the vices here touched by the Apostle is Covetousnesse a vice no less known than the fore-going Only
notable is the elogium he gives it in saying Covetousness which is idolatry For this title surpriseth us every one well knowing that idolatry and covetousness are to speak properly two different sins the first directly respecting religion and the service of the Deity when men adore a thing which is not the true GOD and render it those religious honours which belong to none but GOD whereas covetousness is a moral sin that consists in an excessive and immoderate adhesion to the goods of this world makes men get them and possess them amiss and contrary to the laws of justice and reason These two things therefore being so different why saith St. Paul that covetousness is idolatry Dear Brethren I answer that he was in no wise ignorant of this nor did he intend in this place to confound these two sins which in divers other places he does most expresly discriminate and distinguish as particularly there where making a list of the principal sinners that shall not inherit the kingdom of GOD he sets down the idolater and the covetous severally and each of them in his rank But aiming here in passing to brand and blast this vice for the giving of us a just horror at it that we might not account it as the greater part of men do a light matter and a lowness and weakness of spirit rather than a crime he qualifies it with the elogium of idolatry improperly I grant and figuratively but very fitly for the discovering of its venoum to us And it is not here alone that he hath done it He brands this vice after the same manner again in the Epistle to the Ephesians where speaking of the covetous he adds the very same thing and says who is an idolater You know saith he that no fornicator nor unclean person nor covetous who is an idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom of CHRIST and of GOD. Now this proposition that covetousnesse is idolatry may be pertinently resolved two manner of waies First by taking it as signifying simply that it is an abominable thing For inasmuch as there was nothing in all the horrors of Paganism that was more severely prohibited of GOD nor more hated or abhorred among the Jews than idolatry thence it comes that they gave this name to every thing which they would detest and I perceive that even to this day this form of expression is common among them and when they would signifie that a thing is abominable they frequently say It 's an idol or it is idolatry so that we need not wonder if St. Paul who followeth all the idioms and terms of the Jews language hath said here in a like sense that covetousnesse is idolatry to signifie that it 's an horrible and detestable vice We meet with a like expression or rather indeed the same in Samuel when the Prophet to shew Saul how great the horror was of the fault he had committed in not executing punctually the thing GOD had commanded him tells him 1 Sam. 15.23 that to resist an order of the LORD's is a sin of divination that is of witchcraft or magick and not to acquiesce in what He hath commanded is a sin of idols or images that is idolatry There you see by the names of the most abominable sins witchcraft and idolatry he signifies the horridnesse of disobeying the voice of GOD altogether as the Apostle in our Text expresseth the horridnesse of avarice I add in the second place that though covetousnesse be not properly and formally Idolatry yet it hath so much resemblance with it that there is scarce any other sin to which this name doth better agree The idolater looks on his idols with profound veneration so doth the covetous on his goods and coin The one shuts up his idols so the other doth his The one serves an image and the other gold and silver and when the idol is of either of these two metals as they not seldome are they both serve the self-same thing with this difference only that the idolater serves it under one form and one way figured the covetous under another The one offers incense and sacrifices to his idol the other immolates his heart and affections to his Add hereto that the covetous bears more love to the objects of his passion and renders them more service than he doth to GOD He puts his hope in gold and saith to fine gold Thou art my considence And if you thoroughly examine his life you will find that he serves none but Mammon Mammon is then his GOD after the same manner as the Apostle saith else-where that the holly is the GOD of voluptuous men whence follows that it cannot be denied but that he also is an idolater In fine there are two things here to be yet heeded The first is that under the names of these five vices fornication uncleannesse inordinate appetite evil concupiscence and covetousnesse the Apostle signifies not meerly the acts of these sins which are also commonly called by the same names but properly and precisely the internal habits of them as seated in the soul For it 's they properly that are the members of the old man the acts are but his effects and operations His meaning therefore is that we cut them up to the very root that we not only abstain from those vile actions unto which they sway such as they possesse but that we mortifie and extinguish them themselves to the end that these accursed sources or evil being once dried up our life may remain 〈◊〉 and clean from all the ordures and filth of them The other thing is that we must not fancy the Apostle meant to make here an exact enumeration of all the vices of the old man He gives us but a small scantling of them intending we should likewise mortifie all the rest as gluttony drunkennesse and the like For it would be no benefit to us to have cut off one of his members if we let him live in respect of others His life is our death and while he conserves it whole in any of his parts we cannot be in safety Let us labour therefore to extinguish it all Eradicate all its lusts represse all its stirrings and smother all its sentiments Let us make a mortal and irreconcilable war upon this whole brood of monsters Spare we not any one of them Let us exterminate them all as an Anathema Treating them as the ancient Israelites sometime did the accursed nations of Canaan and as the Psalmist would have the little children of Babilon treated Psal 137.9 desiring they might be dash'd against the stones It 's in this case only that cruelty is laudable and that a man may lay aside pity without blame He that hath pity on the members of his old man is cruel to himself to spare them is to destroy ones self and to conserve them is to betray our own salvation This then My Brethren is the mortification which the Apostle requireth of us Neither he nor
the lesson which the same St. Paul else-where gives us 2 Cor. 6.14 15. that there is no participation between righteousness and unrighteousness nor communion between light and darkness nor accord between CHRIST and Belial In fine this prudent demeanour towards those without which he here prescribeth us doth require that we avoid as much as is possible all actions and speeches that offend them and that saving those to which our religion doth necessarily and inevitably oblige us there escape us not any that may displease them The clause redeeming the time which the Apostle subjoyns containeth the utility and fruit of this sage and prudent demeanour which he hath injoyned the Colossians towards those that are without the meaning is that by governing themselves in that manner they would gain time and mitigate by such an address the rigour of that difficult and dangerous season which they lived in and had the aversions and persecutions of the heathen to surround them I well know there are that expound these words otherwise Some as signifying that the Colossians were to repair their loss of the time past by well employing the present altogether in a good an holy and a prudent way of life For this is that we commonly call redeeming of time Others with more colour say the Apostle's intention is that we should seek and purchase even at the price of what is dearest to us occasions to edifie those that are without and make no difficulty of losing somewhat in matter of estate or ease or even in point of honour or reputation to get the means of obliging them For it is true that the word the Apostle useth here in the original doth often signifie an occasion and opportunity rather than time simply But not to dissemble the one and the other of these two conceptions though both of them veritable as to the thing and Christian yet seems to me a little beside the Apostle's scope and intention here Moreover the Interpretation I proposed at first is more conformable to the stile of Scripture For the phrase which St. Paul useth in this place is found word for word in the Greek Version of the Prophet Daniel at the second Chapter where King Nebuchadnezzar tells the Chaldeans Dan. 2.8 He knew well they would redeem the time meaning as our Bibles have aptly rendred it that they would gain time that is would fain escape and smoothly get out of that ill piece of way in which they perceived themselves put to such a plunge To the same sense the Apostle here though in a very different subject bids us redeem the time by walking wisely towards them that are without that is that we should by such prudent and dextrous conduct sweeten their spirits and handsomely divert the storm of their fury as an ill influence which might overwhelm us gliding gently on and gaining time untill things governed and ordered by the providence of GOD have changed their posture It 's also hereto that that reason doth evidently referr which the Apostle elsewhere annexeth to this very command in a passage of the Epistle to the Ephesians conform and parallel to our Text Eph. 5.15 16. Walk heedfully saith he not as fools but as wise redeeming the time for he adds the daies are evil He would have us use much circumspection in the ordering of our lives and redeem the time because it is evil that is troublesome and difficult to pass by reason of their ill-disposition towards us among whom we live they being ready at every turn to destroy us upon the least occasion of exasperation and of executing their malevolence that we give them Therefore as a wise Mariner at Sea when the wind ariseth and the waters threaten and the presages of a tempest do appear he haleth in his sails and prepares then accommodates himself to the violence of the waves and le ts drive a little not daring to bear up full against it all to gain time and redeem himself by such care and conduct out of so sad and angry a season like industry would the Apostle have us use to ward off the blows which the not-so-favourable disposition of those without towards us doth menace he would have us not take all our liberty with them but manage our words and actions prudently accommodating our selves the most we may unto their temper and avoiding all that is apt to provoke them giving them no occasion to enterprise upon us that if it be possible we may by such holy and advised conduct gain time and eschew an ill encounter and redeem our selves from the troubles and disorders it threatens us withal It 's a reason of the command he gave us to walk wisely towards them that are without For besides the interest of the glory of GOD and of the edification of men which calls for this endeavour at our hands as hath been said our own good our safety and preservation doth also necessarily oblige us thereunto it being evidently impossible for us to subsist in the estate we most times are if we do not with a great deal of heedfulness and prudence put by and lenifie the ill affections of those among whom we live and upon whom in an humane way our lives and liberties depend But after this general exhortation the Apostle makes us another for the government of our speech in particular which we must now explain with all the brevity we may Let your speech saith he be alwaies steep'd in salt with grace that you may know how ye ought to answer every one I must needs say that this is requisite in all the discourses of the faithful whomsoever they speak to and that their mouth ought to be a treasury of benediction out of which should issue not a word but that is holy and full of grace and good as the Apostle says elsewhere to the use of edifying that is proper to edifie them that hear it But as in the precedent verse though wisdome be necessary in all the parts of our carriage yet he gave it us in charge particularly in reference to our commerce with such as are without I count that in like manner here pursuing the same subject he doth appropriate those characters which ought to appear generally in all the words of our mouths to that discourse and converse in particular which we have with persons without Besides the continuation of his discourse which there 's little likelyhood he should here suddenly break off without reason his adding that of answering every one c. confirms me further in this opinion those words evidently referring to the answers we are to make to those without when they interrogate or question us about our religion as appears by St. Peter's making use of wel-nigh the same words in the same subject Be ready alwaies saith he to answer every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you 1 Pet. 3.15 with meekness and reverence Now truly the Apostle had good