it And for as much as in material Edifices it is the Foundation that sustaineth all the Building thence it comes that the Scripture gives that name to our LORD and Saviour as to him upon whom this spiritual Structure doth entirely depend Other foundation saith the Apostle can no man lay 1 Cor. 3.11 than that which is laid even JESVS CHRIST And this the Prophets foretold in saying of him that God would set in Sion a chief Corner-stone Isa 28.16 Psal 118.22 elect and precious And that the stone which the builders rejected should be made head of the corner The Apostle therefore desiring to fortifie his dear Colossians against the danger of falling prosecuting this figure so common in Scripture commands them to be built up in JESUS CHRIST And the same expression he makes use of elsewhere as when he saith that we are built upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Eph. 2.20 21. JESVS CHRIST himself being the chief Corner-stone it whom saith he all the building proportioned and fitly set together riseth up unto an holy Temple in the Lord. What is it then to be built up in JESUS CHRIST Dear Brethren we say an House is builded on a Rock when a Rock is the Foundation that bears and sustains it wholly A soul is builded in JESUS CHRIST when it wholly relieth upon Him so as its Faith its Hope its Love and the other parts of its mystical structure are all set upon Him and immediately fastned to Him it believeth the Gospel because 't is the word of CHRIST is assured of the remission of sins because they were expiated by CHRIST it expects the Kingdom of Heaven because he purchas'd it loveth neighbours because they are his workmanship meekly beareth affliction because it is a part of his Cross in sum layeth and setleth upon him alone the designs the thoughts the enjoyments and the expectations wherein consisteth both its present life and that which is to come One so built up in JESUS CHRIST is right that wise man commended by our Saviour's own mouth Mat. 7.24 2â— who buildeth his House on a Rock so as no violence is able to effect its fall For indeed what can overthrow a soul seated on this Rock of Ages which is so firm and unmoveable for ever Where is the tentation or the persecution that can beat it down What is built upon this Foundation is not subject to natural accidents It 's a celestial and an eternal Edisice But the misery of men and the true cause of their weakness and ruin is that they build elsewhere either wholly or for the greatest part The World is the ground whereon they set and raise up the designs of their lives and this ground being nought but weak and floating Sand the first force that assaults them brings them down and their fall saith our Saviour is great Lastly The Apostle expresseth in proper terms what he had represented under these two Metaphors adding and established in faith For it is properly by faith that we are rooted in JESUS CHRIST and 't is by it also that we are founded and built up in him all these phrases signifying only the spiritual union and conjunction which we have with the LORD the sole tye whereof faith is Let us labour therefore continually to confirm our faith if we would resist the enemy Let us meditate the truth of the Gospel study all its mysteries taste the excellency of it Let us carefully hear and read that word wherein GOD hath reveal'd it to us By it faith hath its being as the Apostle tells us Rom. 10.17 Faith comes of hearing and bearing of the word of God Whence you may judg how contrary to the Apostle's injunction the command of the Church of Rome is who will not grant that the faithful should read Scripture How shall they be confirmed in faith if they have no commerce with this sacred word the only parent and nurse of faith How again can they without it acquit themselves in that which the Apostle commands in the second place even that we abound in faith It is not enough that we be established in it that we have of it for necessity he would have us furnish'd even unto plenty possess'd of a great and rich measure of it have this sacred light to go on still encreasing and augmenting as he saith elsewhere from faith to faith Some are of the mind that this word must be reserred not singly to the thing but also to the sentiment that we have of it As if the Apostle's meaning were when he speaks of abounding in faith that we should account our selves to have abundantly in the faith of JESUS CHRIST alone all the saving-knowledg we can desire without needing the addition of ought any other way This exposition is elegant and ingenious and very pertinent to the Apostle's design But because it is followed by few and the former is more simple I will not insist upon it In fine the Apostle adds in the third and last place giving of thanks abounding in faith saith he with thanksgiving His scope is that we do tenderly resent the excellency and plenty of the benefits which are communicated to us by the Gospel and do remember the spring whence they flow to wit the sole Grace of GOD who taking us out of the darkness of error and ignorance wherein we were plunged hath made us enter into the Kingdom of Light by the power of his Word and Spirit that we may continually render him our grateful acknowledgments of it Besides that this duty is most reasonable of it self it is also necessary to ensure the faith of the Gospel unto us For as on the one hand GOD augmenteth his gifts to the thankful so he taketh them away from the unthankful withdrawing his light from their souls and giving them up to themselves as you know he threatneth ingrateful Churches to take his Candlestick from them And the Apostle informs us elsewhere that to them who receiv'd not the love of the truth he sendeth the efficacy of error so as they believe a lye which is the most dreadful punishment wherewith he avengeth himself on the iniquity of men Dear Brethren that we fall not into so dismal a judgment let us possess this treasure of knowledg which GOD hath given us in his Son with all the gratitude we can humbly blessing him for that he hath vouchsafed to impart a thing so precious and of such saving-importance unto us to us I say who were so unworthy of it Let it be all our love and all our glory Let others boast of their might and their skill of their riches and their greatness As for us glory we only in the knowledg of GOD and of his holy Gospel the sole supream happiness of man Let us be jealous of this holy Doctrine keeping it pure and sincere and carefully taking heed of the Leaven of Superstition and Error Let us be content with our LORD JESUS
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
of the same and giving of thanks He expresseth the first two ways First in metaphorical terms being rooted and built up in JESVS CHRIST And next properly and without figure being established or confirmed in faith For this confirmation in faith is no other thing than the self-same that he intendeth by the words rooted and built up in JESVS CHRIST The first of these two Metaphors is taken from Trees which stand firm and easily resist the violence of winds when they have put forth good and deep roots into the earth which serve them for so many stays and bands to hold them fast whereas the Plants which have but little or no root are easily pluckt up the least gust yea the hand of a Child is enough to overthrow them The faithful are often in Scripture compared unto trees You all know the Parable of the Fig-tree in the Gospel Psa 92.13 14 and that of the Palm-tree in the Psalms The just shall flourish as the Palm-tree and grow as the Cedar in Lebanon And there 's no one in the Church but is acquainted with that dainty Tree planted by the rivers of waters which bringeth its fruit in its season and the leaves whereof doth not wither Psal 1.3 which the Psalmist gives us a picture of at the beginning of his Book for an image of a true believer Whence it comes that the Ministers who labour in the culture of these Mystical Plants are likened to Gardeners and Vine-dressers and Husbandmen such an one was he in that Evangelical Parable Luke 13.8 who prayed the Owner to supersede the sentence pronounced upon one of his fig-trees And S. Paul also expresseth his own and Apollos his labouring for the edification of the faithful in terms taken from the same subject saying that he planted and Apollos watered 1 Cor. 3.6 â— In consequence of these figurative expressions which are familiar in Scripture you see that it is with much gracefulness and a great deal of reason that the Apostle here to recommend firmness of faith in JESUS CHRIST doth say they should be rooted in Him He saith the same again elsewhere when he prayeth GOD to strengthen the Ephesians by his spirit Eph. 3.18 that saith he being rooted and founded in love they might be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length the heighth and depth and to know the love of Christ For since the faithful man is compared to a tree it is congruous to attribute to him both the production that is fruits and the parts of a tree whereof the principal is the root We say then that a tree is well rooted when its root is spread abroad and thrust far into the ground where it is planted and fastned to it so many ways that it stands upright and firm nor can be plucked up without extream difficulty Who then is the believer rooted in CHRIST Even the man whose whose soul embraceth the LORD JESUS all whose thoughts and affections are stretch'd forth and fastned to this Divine crucified Saviour who hath neither love nor desire nor affiance but for Him It is he who having rightly understood the excellency and the fulness of this rich Subject seeks all his felicity in it and withdrawing the desires the cares and affections of his heart from earth which are as it were the strings and roots of our nature by which it is fastned to its objects doth thrust them forth towards JESUS CHRIST doth unite with and bind them about Him and resteth on him alone and draweth the nutriment of his life from none other â—s you know trees by their root do receive all that juice which makes them â—â—ve shoot forth and fructifie Not to alledg any other example such a one was our Paul so fastned was he unto and so incorporated with his LORD that he liv'd in Him alone this divine ground wherein he was planted affording him all the joy all the contentment and all the life he had There is no need to fear that those who adhere to JESUS CHRIST in such a manner who are so really and deeply rooted in Him can ever be pluck'd up by any effort how violent soever it be The winds do in vain shake them tempests do beat upon them to no purpose persecutions will not be able to make them bend nor fraud nor eloquence nor the subtilty of Sophisters remove them Novelties and Curiosities do not tempt them because that sweet sap which they continually draw from their CHRIST as from a rich soil doth content them and purgeth them of that foolish and childish itching humour which openeth the ears of the weak and unstable to such things But if you be not thus rooted in CHRIST it will be no great difficulty to pluck you from the station you are in If it be not this heavenly efficacy of our LORD but either birth or breeding or the discourse or authority of men or the name of liberty or any other such like cause which keeps you in the profession of Christianity I am much afraid you will not long abide in it If your heart be in the world if it still spread its affections as its roots into perishing things if it still admire the pleasures of the flesh and the fumes of ambition and the vanity of riches your perseverance is in truth very dubious The tree that hath no root hath no hold The first gust that falls upon it bears it down And would to God experience had less justified this truth in our eyes But this is the very cause of all their change who have deserted us If you examine their lives you will find they were not well rooted in CHRIST JESUS Wonder not that they were overthrown But let us make our profit of their unhappiness obeying the Apostle And that we may abide firm for ever in the communion of this Divine LORD of ours out of which there is nothing but misery and perdition let us be rooted in him with a lively and profound faith and love Let us love and relish him only and inseparably fasten all the powers of our souls to him alone as dead and risen again for us drawing all our righteousness from his Cross and all our hope and our glory from his Heavenly state and his immortality I come to the other Metaphor here used by the Apostle to set forth the confirming of our faith in JESUS CHRIST being rooted saith he and built up in JESVS CHRIST The former was taken from Trees and this now is drawn from Buildings It is no less famous in Scripture than the other for the faithful are there oftentimes compared to Houses and particularly to Temples and the Church that is the Society consisting of them collectively is represented to us under the same image Whence it comes that the labours of the Servants of the Lord for this end are also called edifyings a word so common in this sense that there is no need we should stay to explain
resurrection of JESUS CHRIST that gives us all this assurance putting in our hand a firm proof of the satisfaction of Divine Justice from the deliverance of our Surety and of our immortality from his having taken possession of the same for himself and us so as our souls being certifi'd of the transcendent goodness of GOD and of their own happiness do ardently embrace his Discipline and the endeavouring of a new life Besides that faith which purifies our 〈◊〉 and by which as we shall hear anon we are risen again in JESUS CHRIST could not take place in us if he were not risen from the dead Rom. 1.4 1 Pet. 1.3 since it 's by that he was declar'd the Son of GOD with power according to the spirit of holiness Therefore S Peter saith it 's by the resurrection of JESUS CHRIST from the dead that GOD hath begotten us again unto a lively hope And S. Paul for this very reason 1 Cor. 15.17 protesteth that if CHRIST were not risen our faith would be vain and we should be still in our sins It must then be concluded that in rising again he raised up us also by the same means forasmuch as by rising he gave being and clearness to the principles and causes of our mystical resurrection Opening his own tomb he by that means opened ours He broke in pieces the doors and barâ—s of our Sepulchers by quitting his own and raising himself from the dust he drew us up out of the earth and brought us forth from the abode of death that glorious life also wherewith he then vested himself hath inspired into us all the spiritual life motions and sentiments that we have O holy and blessed Communion O divine and incorruptible fruits of the Sepulcher of JESUS CHRIST The death of the first man did kill us and the death of the second maketh us alive The one's Sepulcher is our prison the other our liberty In the former do appear horror and malediction the signs of our guilt and of the just wrath of GOD but from the latter peace and life do bud out glory and immortality shoot forth The grave of Adam did extinguish and shut up for ever in a state of exinanition all the beauty strength and life of our nature The Sepulcher of JESUS CHRIST hath destroyed nothing but our sin it hath shut up and kept in only our old man that is the loathsomness and misery of our lives and instead of this abominable body of sin and death whereof it hath divested us hath as it were teemed with and brought forth a celestial and immortal nature which it puts on us together with our Saviour And thus you see what are the fruits of our communion with JESUS CHRIST namely the destruction of our old man and the creation of the new signified by the Apostle in these words we are buried and risen again with him Let us now consider the two fold means here intimated by the Apostle by which GOD doth make us partakers of them The first is Baptism being buried saith he with CHRIST by baptism wherein also you are rais'd again together with him For so do I take these words rendring wherein not in whom and referring this term not to JESUS CHRIST but to Baptism as it it had been said In which Baptism you are also raised again together with the LORD this construction being more natural and more convenient than the other as they that understand the original Language wherein the Apostle wrose with easily perceive if they take the pâ—ns to consider this Text there though it the bottom it make no difference which of these two ways be taken the whole amounting to the same sense whether you say that we are risen again in Baptism or in JESUS CHRIST In truth all the means which GOD makes use of in Religion have no other tendency but to communicate JESUS CHRIST to us as dead buried and risen again for us to the destruction of our old man and the vivification of the new Nor do they ever fail to produce these two effects in any of those that receive them as they ought Therefore the holy Apostles frequently ascribe them to the word of the Gospel which is the first and principal means that GOD makes use of to save us Rom. 1.15 Heb. 4.12 by reason whereof it is called his power to salvation As for the destroying of the old man the Epistle to the Hebrews attributes to the Word the virtue that operateth and effecteth it in us saying that it is quick and powerful 2 Cor. 10.4 5 sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and S. Paul elsewhere calleth it a weapon mighty to the pulling down of strong holds to the overthrowing of imaginations and every heighth that exalteth it self against the knowledg of GOD and for the bringing of every thought into captivity to the obedience of CHRIST And as to the life of the new man 1 Pet. 1.23 25 you know S. Peter teacheth us that the Gospel which is preached us is the seed of this life telling us that it is thereby we are born again That holy Supper of which we have participated this morning hath also the same effects For since it communicateth to us the body of JESUS CHRIST dead and buried and risen again for us we need not doubt but iâ— gives us also the virtue which it hath and is insuparably adherent to it for the putting to death the old Adam and making the new to live in us by its be-dewing our Consciences with his blood and feeding our souls with his flesh But although these two effects be common to all the means which GOD hath instituted and 〈…〉 use of in Religion yet the Apostle speaks here but of Baptism 〈◊〉 Because 〈◊〉 the first seal we receive of our Saviour and the proper Sacrament of our regeâ—eration which containeth the initials and beginning of our spiritual 〈◊〉 in the House of God whence it comes that treating of the same subject elsewhere Rom. 6.3 4. he makes mention of Baptism in like manner Know you not saith he that we all who have been baptiz'd into JESVS CHRIST have been baptiz'd into his death Therefore we are buried with him by Baptism Secoudly He so doth that he might with so much the more clearness confute the erroâ— he here combareth even by opposing to that circumcision which the seducers did press that Baptism which we have receiv'd in JESUS CHRIST whereby hath been fully communicated to us all that these people pretended to draw from the use of circumcision Their folly was therefore so much the more insupportable for that they would not only retain a shadow whereof JESUS CHRIST hath given us the true body but also withstood one of the old Sacraments of Moses its giving place to one of those which JESUS instituted If question be of the substance and very effect of
that the Apostle did the honour to write this Epistle S. Paul qualifieth the Christians at Colosse Saints and faithful Brethren He calleth them Saints a name he ordinarily giveth to all true Christians and which belongeth to them indeed forasmuch as GOD separating them from the rest of men by the effectual working of His Word and by the Sacrament of His Baptism cleanseth and purifieth them from the filth of Sin and delivereth them from the servitude of the flesh and consecrates them to His own name and service to be to Him a peculiar people addicted to good works Whence it comes that the whole body of the faithful is called in the Creed The Holy Church Mark this well my Brethren and make account that you cannot be Christians except you be truly Saints Suffer not your selves to be abused by the deceitfulness of those who promise you this glorious Name provided only you make profession to believe in CHRIST and that ye will live in the Communion of their Church how naught and impious soever ye be other wayes the body of the LORD is too lively and precious to have dead and rotten members I confess if you have the industry to hide your Vices under the false appearances of an outward profession you will gain thus much that men will give you the name of Christians and reckon you among the members of the Church as it might well be that among those whom the Apostle honours here with the Name of Saints and faithful there were some hypocrites But GOD who seeth the secrets of our hearts and upon whose judgement our whole condition doth depend will never count you Christians or members of his Son if you be not truly Saints Paul likewise and the Church who by a charitable judgement call you now Disciples of the LORD will change their opinion and rank you with profane men and worldlings when they shall discover your Hypocrifie The Title Faithful which the Apostle gives in the second place to the Colossians is common to all true Christians too and is taken from that Faith they give to the Gospel of the LORD The word Brethren that follows signifieth the holy communion they had with the Apostle and with all other believers of whatsoever quality or condition they were as persons all begotten of the same Father namely GOD all born of the same Mother Jerusalem from on high all partaking of the same Divine Nature all nursed in the same spiritual family bred up in the same hopes destined to the same inheritance consecrated by one and the same Discipline In fine He adds in CHRIST because it is of Him and by Him and in Him that we have all this Sanctity Faith and Fraternal union the titles whereof he hath given to the Colossians After having thus denoted and qualified the persons He writes unto He wisheth them according to His custom Grace and Peace from GOD our Father and from the LORD JESVS CHRIST By Grace He meaneth the favour and good will of GOD with the saving gifts and divine assistance wherewith he gratifieth those He loveth in His Son By Peace He signifieth that of GOD which is nothing else but the calm and tranquility of a soul that looketh to the LORD with assurance having remission of its sins by JESUS CHRIST and is delivered by the effectual operation of His Spirit from the importune tyranny of the lusts of the flesh It may yet well be that beside this first and chiefest peace the Apostle intendeth also that of men a sweet and calm estate exempt from their hatred and persecutions that they might without justling them or being troubled of them lead a peaceable life in all godliness and honesty You should also know that in the stile of Scripture the word Peace signifieth generally all kind of welfare and prosperity to which sense it may without inconvenience be interpreted in this place But he wisheth them these benefits From GOD our Father and from our LORD JESVS CHRIST From GOD because He is the first and highest spring of all good the Father of lights from whom cometh down every good gift From JESVS CHRIST for that He is as the channel by which the benefits of GOD stream down upon us it being clear that without the death and resurrection and in a word without the mediation of JESUS we could have had no part in the least of the Graces of GOD. He calleth GOD our Father because He hath adopted us freely in His Son and it is properly upon this relation that He communicateth His Grace and Peace to us whence it cometh that JESUS CHRIST hath given us order to call Him our Father in the prayer He hath taught us He calleth JESUS CHRIST the LORD because he is our Master who hath all power and authority over us as well by the right of Creation as by that of Redemption Such is the Inscription of this Epistle Let us come now to the second point of our Text wherein the Apostle congratulates the Colossians for the part they had in JESUS CHRIST We give thanks saith he to GOD for you who is the Father of our LORD JESVS CHRIST praying alwayes for you having heard speak of your faith in JESVS CHRIST and of the charity you have towards all the Saints for the hope that is reserved for you in Heaven which you have before heard of by the word of truth to wit the Gospel Here is as the Preface or Exordium of the Epistle which extendeth as far as the thirteenth Verse wherein the Apostle by the true praises he giveth the piety of the Colossians winneth their benevolence and declares to them His affection to prepare them for a right and faithful reception of the instructions he will hereafter propose to them as proceeding from a soul desirous of their salvation He protesteth therefore to them First In general that as often as himself and Timothy prayed GOD for them they did it with most humble thanksgivings for the happy estate wherein in Spirit they saw them Next he toucheth more particularly the grounds of this thanksgiving and proposeth three of them First The faith of the Colossians Secondly their charity and in the third and last place the inheritance reserved in Heaven for them Three particulars which comprize all the felicity of man The part He taketh in the happiness of the Colossians teacheth us one of the most necessary offices of our charity which is to interess our selves in the affairs of our Brethren to mourn with them that mourn to rejoyce with them that joy and be as nearly touched with their good and evil as our own Far from our practice be the envy and malignity of worldlings to whom the prosperity of others giveth trouble and their adversity gladness who feed themselves with their miseries and are sad at their mercies But the Apostle sheweth us moreover by this his example that the joy we have for the good of our neighbours should be elevated unto GOD who
are those mouths of Hell that inspire nothing but hatred and kindle nothing but animosity envy and revenge in the souls of those whom they can breath upon who busie themselves in making dissentions among brethren in dividing and arming one against the other such as nature or grace hath most strictly united But it is time henceforth to conclude this action that which you have heard may I think suffice for your understanding of this Text and so nothing remains for me but to conjure you to make in good earnest your profit of it and to draw from this Meditation the holy uses it containeth whether for the correction of your manners or the consolation of your souls The Gospel of JESUS CHRIST is come unto you the same Gospel which yerwhile changed the Universe which abolished Idolatry and Paganism and made the knowledge and service of the true GOD flourish every where The LORD hath raised you up Epaphras's faithful Ministers of His Word who have published it to your Fathers and to you with exquisite sincerity and truth entirely so as Paul preached it to the Nations without any leaven of superstition or error acquitting themselves in their Stewardship with so upright a conscience with so much zeal and ardour as I assure my self that the great Apostle were he now on earth would do them the honour to own them for his dear fellow-labourers You have seen this sacred doctrine renew the proofs of its divinity by the swiftness of it's course and efficacy of its vertue as which in little time flew through all Christendome and in spight of the oppositions of Hell and Earth rais'd up every where fair and flourishing Churches to the LORD We may say particularly of yours that the Gospel fructified in it from the day it was heard there The blood and the sufferings of so many faithful ones as gloriously sealed its truth therewith their charity their zeal their good and holy works of which memory remaineth still among us are unreproachable witness of it But I know not whether I may justly add what the Apostle saith here of his Colossians that the Gospel bringeth forth fruit still in you For those few fruits which it produceth here are choaked up with so many thorns and bryars so many sins and vices that they scarce deserve to be considered Not that the Gospel is changed in its self It hath still that immortal force which GOD gave it to bud and thrust forth and produce the fruits of righteousness and life It is ever the incorruptible seed of GOD His Word living and abiding for ever full of efficacy and vigour Whence then cometh this sterility Dear Brethren it cometh from the bad disposition of our ground and not from the weakness of the heavenly seed The Gospel fructifieth not among us because it falls in stony places and by the High-ways or among thorns upon souls either full of worldly lusts and carnal cares or exposed to the feet to the going to and fro of Devils or frozen up and hardned with the fear of temporal evils This is Faithful Sirs the true cause of our barrenness Let us then purge our hearts Hos 10 12 Jer. 4.3 and as a Prophet saith break up our fallow grounds Let us pluck up the thorns which the world hath planted there avarice the desire and deceitfulness of riches ambition and the love of our flesh sensuality and vanity When you shall receive the Gospel into souls so prepared it will not fail to shew it's fecundity It will bring forth it's fruit abundantly in some an hundred for one in others sixty in others thirty Without this it is in vain that we boast us of JESUS CHRIST and of His Word His Word is not given us but to fructifie If we abide barren far from serving us it will aggravate our condemnation and draw upon us a judgement so much the more terrible by how much the more plentifully it was communicated to us Remember that dreadful threatning justified by so many sad and lamentable experiments which the Apostle denounced to the Hebrews The earth that bringeth forth thorns and thistles is rejected and nigh unto cursing and it's end is to be burned 'T is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living GOD who is so much the more severe to punish the contempt of His Word by how much the more liberal He was in imparting it to men These same Colossians whose faith and charity the Apostle praiseth here and their neighbours the Laodiceans and those of Hierapolis for not having continued to bear fruits worthy their Vocation saw some years after their Cities ruined and swallowed up in an horrible earthquake And all those fair Churches of Asia so much celebrated in the Acts and the Apocalyps are at this day entirely desolate for not having made their profit of the Gospel GOD hath already begun too to avenge this contempt of His Word in divers places of Christendome which the bryars and thorns of the old superstition do cover once again instead of the Gospel that lately flourished there GOD forbid Dear Brethren that we should fall into the like condemnation To prevent it let us recover the zeal of our Fathers let us do the first works Let the Gospel fructifie again in the midst of us Let it bring forth and make to grow up abundantly charity meekness honesty peace humility patience alms prayer fasting sobriety chastity and the other fruits of the Spirit and above all a spiritual love of St. Paul and the other Apostles who report the Gospel to us to respect them and walk in their doctrine concord and mutual love in one towards another If we make this use of it GOD will take pleasure in the midst of us He will daily visit us He will cherish us as His Paradice His Heritage the Garden of His delights He will pour out upon us here below all kind of graces and blessings in abundance and after having seen us fructifie on Earth He will one day transplant us into Heaven to live and flourish there for ever in the Courts of His own blessed and eternal habitation Amen THE III. SERMON COL I. Ver. IX Vers IX And for this cause we also since the day we heard it cease not to pray for you and to make request that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding THE love of beauty and excellency is so natural to us that we cannot discover so much as the beginnings and buddings of it any where but we take pleasure in them and the secret content we thence receive usually causeth us to wish their growth and their perfection unless envy or some other maligne passion do check the moving of our hearts Thus when we see towardly Children and that promise well there is no soul that hath ever so little of humanity but is delighted and maketh the like apprecation for them as Joseph did sometime for Benjamin when
may effectually further our edification and consolation The benefit of our redemption being very great and most admirable in all respects as we even now intimated it 's with great reason that the Apostle beginneth his discourse of it by giving of thanks unto GOD. And in his Epistles ordinarily he scarce ever speaks of it but praising withall or admiring the goodness of the LORD He directeth his thanksgiving to the Father as the first and supream author of this excellent work Think not that he denieth the Son or the Spirit their part in it or that he would deprive them of the glory due to them for it For since these three persons are but one only and the same GOD it is evident that the works of the Deity appertain to them all three But as they subsist in a certain order the Father of Himself the Son of the Father who generated Him the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son of whom He proceedeth from all eternity so likewise do they act in the same disposition And forasmuch as the Father is the first in this order of their subsistence and operation thence it comes that He addresseth His benedictions particularly to Him as the prime and the soveraign source of the Deity from whence originally hath streamed down upon us all the good and grace that we have received in our redemption But let us see how the Apostle describeth this work of our salvation for which he gives the LORD thanks He hath made us capable saith he to partake of the inheritance of Saints in light After that Sin had made a separation between GOD and us it was naturally impossible for us to have part in any of His blessings The LORD therefore designing to save us took care first of all to remove this obstacle of our communication with Him This He did satisfying His justice by the expiation of sin through the death of His Son JESUS CHRIST and by that means the liberty of that commerce between His goodness and our poor nature which our sin had interrupted was opened again so as henceforth nothing hindreth save on mans own part but he may make his approaches to GOD and partake of his Grace through faith and repentance Yet this is not the thing which the Apostle intendeth in this place when he saith that the Father hath made us capable of having part in His inheritance For this grace by which He hath opened the Throne of His beneficence through the expiation of sin doth generally respect all men nor is there any but access thither is free for him if he present himself with faith and repentance whereas the Grace whereof the Apostle speaketh here is appropriate to him and the Colossians and such as resemble them that is in a word it 's peculiar to true believers and not common to all men It must be observed therefore in the second place that besides this first impediment which did shut up the gate of the House of GOD against us to wit the inexorable severity of His avenging Justice there is yet another no less difficult to be surmounted than the former though it be of another kind and a different nature It is the naughtiness the hardness and the blindness of our corrupt nature For as the justice of GOD would not permit that a creature foul with sin should approach Him except its sin were expiated so His wisdom could not suffer it should finger any of His divine favours except it repented of having offended Him and believed His promises But in the estate we lye in since our fall our soul is so depraved by sin that it is not capable of its self either to consider GOD or to put affiance in His goodness and so this great Miracle of the love of GOD towards us I mean the expiation of sin by the death of His Son would remain without any saving effect in respect of us if leaving us in the condition we were born He did but simply present the declarations of His grace in external means to us For this cause therefore this kind and compassionate LORD not content to have opened the gate of His bounty by the Cross of His CHRIST doth also fetch us up from the grave of our impiety and gives us the will and the strength to come to Himself It is properly this second benefit peculiar to those that believe which the Apostle meaneth here when he saith that GOD hath made us capable to partake of His inheritance The first gift of the Father did capacitate His hand to communicate His treasures to us and the second doth capacitate us to handle them Without the death of His dear Son He might not give us life and without Hâ—s effectual calling we could not receive it of Him Faithful Sirs mark well this lesson of the Apostle Who giveth thanks to GOD for that He hath made us capable of partaking of His inheritance He first brings down thereby the pride of those that give this glory to free will boasting that they have made themselves capable of salvation either by some kind of pre-dispositions which oblige GOD at least by the way of decency to give them His grace or by the due using and menaging of afflictions the pride I say of all those in general who pretend that it is in a mans own power to prepare himself for the heavenly inheritance No saith the Apostle This wholy appertaineth unto GOD. It is He that hath made us capable 2 Cor. 3.5 Of our selves we cannot so much as think a good thought so he affirms elsewhere I confess that this impotency of man is voluntary and consequently criminal it proceeds from the extream badness of his heart and from no defect of any of those things which are necessary from without for this effect For what else besides his own rebelliousness doth hinder him from believing in GOD and embracing with repentance the exhibitions of His grace which are presented to him either in the course of nature or in the Law or by the Gospel Yet so it is that how voluntary soever this His naughtiness be it is invincible and altogether refractory It is no longer a weakness It 's a formed impotency which nature is not able to correct And the Scripture speaks of it every where in this sense 1 Cor. 2.14 Rom. 8.5 The carnal man saith the Apostle cannot understand the things of the Spirit of GOD because they are spiritually discerned And elsewhere The affection of the flesh is enmity against GOD. For it rendreth not its self subject to the Law of GOD Joh. 12.39 Jer. 6.10 13.23 nor indeed can And St. John speaking of the Jews They cannot believe saith he And Jeremiah of their Ancestours Their ear saith he is uncircumcised and they cannot hear Will the Ethiopian change his skin and the Leopard his spots so can you do any good who have learned to do only evil such is the miserable state of all men
longer either evil that can hurt thee or good that can be denyed thee if it be profitable for thy salvation Away with that cruel and extravagant doctrine which will have it that GOD remitteth the fault without remitting the punishment This is to oppose even natural sense and common reason For what is it to remit a sin save to punish it not and treat him that committed it as if He had not been culpable This is to give the Apostle the lye who proclaimeth both elsewhere That there is no condemnation to them Rom. 8.1 that are in JESVS CHRIST and here that the remission of our sins is a redemption For if GOD punished the faithful as is pretended He would do it after having condemned them to suffer since being most just He neither punisheth nor absolveth any without judgement And if notwithstanding our remission we escape not burning in the pretended Purgatory fire how is our remission a redemption Is this to ransome a criminal person to make Him be burned I grant the faithful after this remission obtained are not freed from divers afflictions during their temporal abode here below But I affirm that their sufferings are exercises or chastisements and not properly punishments of their sin The LORD sends 'em them not in His wrath but in His grace not to punish them but either to amend them or to prove them and render them conform to the image of His Son who was consecrated by afflictions in the dayes of His flesh Such is this remission of sins the redemption we have in JESUS CHRIST Let us now see by what means He hath obtained it for us The Apostle teacheth it us in saying That we have it by His blood We have already said how the word Redemption here used doth signifie that our deliverance was effected by the payment of a ransome This he expresly noteth elsewere saying 1 Cor. 6.20 that we have been bought with a price Now therefore he declareth what this price is what this ransome of our deliverance even the Blood of JESUS CHRIST 1 Pet. 118 19. St. Peter insisteth likewise on the same consideration We have been redeemed saith he not with corruptible things as silver or gold but with the precious blood of CHRIST as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot And the LORD JESUS informs us plainly of the same thing when speaking of the end and design of His mission Mat. 20.28 He saith that He came not to be served but to serve and to lay down His soul a ransome for many Semblably St. Paul 1 Tim. 1.6 that JESVS CHRIST gave Himself a ransome for all And in this same sense it is that we must understand what the Spirits of the Blessed do say Rev. 5.9 Act. 20.28 when they glorisie the Lamb for that He hath redeemed them to GOD by His blood and St. Paul in the Acts that GOD hath purchased the Church by His own blood By these passages and a multitude of others of like import it is evident that the Apostle both in this place and in the first Chapter to the Ephesians where He repeats the same words by the blood of CHRIST understands the violent death He suffered on the Cross with effusion of His blood which He did shed forth in great abundance through the wounds of His feet of His hands and of His side And it 's a thing common in all languages to signifie life by blood and the loss of life by effusion of blood But the Holy Ghost particularly useth this manner of speaking when there is reference to a Sacrifice For in such cases the blood of the Victime is almost alwayes put for the life it loseth when offered so as it need not be thought strange that these divine authors say the blood of CHRIST who is the only Lamb and most perfect oblation which all the old Sacrifices did typifie when they mean the life He spent for us on the Cross offering it to the Father as the propitiation for our sins This now is the great mysterie of the Gospel which was not known to men or Angels nor could have been ever thought on or conceived by any but the supream and infinite wisdom of GOD that JESUS CHRIST the wel-beloved of the Father the most Holy one should lay down His life for us be set in our stead and bear our sins in His own body on the tree and suffer in His sacred flesh and in His most holy soul the pains and sorrows we had merited to exempt us from them It 's this precisely that we mean when we affirm that He satisfied the Justice of GOD for us And the Apostle in these words furnisheth us to preserve this glory to our LORD against two sorts of adversaries one of them that impudently deny His having satisfied for us at all another of those who grant His satisfaction but do extend this honour unto others also and will have it appertain likewise to Saints and even to our selves As for the first they deserve not to be accounted Christians since they reject a truth so cleerly and so frequently asserted in the Gospel confessed by all the Church and which besides is the source of our comfort both in life and death and the only foundation of all our hopes For if JESUS CHRIST satisfied not for us what mean the Prophets and Apostles who proclaim at the beginning in the midst and at the end of all their Preaching that He dyed for our sins 1 Cor. 15.3 Isa 53.5 10. Rom. 3.24 Joh. 1.29 Heb. 9.27 28. 10.10 1.3 was wounded for our trespasses and bruised for our iniquities That the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and by His stripes we are healed that His soul was made an offering for sin That He is our propittaion through faith in His blood That He is the Lamb of GOD which taketh away the sins of the world That He offered up Himself a sacrifice for sin and sanctified us by this oblation and purged away our sins by Himself I omit at present other places the number whereof is infinite These are sufficient to settle the truth For first since our deliverance is called a Redemption it must needs be that JESUS CHRIST hath purchased it for us by some ransome He gave in our behalf But He gave none at all except in dying He laid out His life and His blood for us and in our stead Again if it be not thus why saith the Apostle it is by the blood of CHRIST that we have the remission of our sins If it be not a satisfaction for our sins 't is evident it 's of no use at all to obtain us the remission of them In this case we should have it not by the blood or death of CHRIST which after this account would have contributed nothing thereunto but by the sole goodness either of GOD or of His Son For to say that the remission of sins is attributed to the blood
us This is the mysterie of the bread we there break and of the cup we there bless in remembrance and for the communicating of that sacred body which was broken for us and of that divine blood which was shed for the remission of our sins Let us carefully improve a doctrine so necessary and which is so diligently inculcated on us in the word and in the Sacraments of our LORD referring it to our edification and comfort Learn we from it first the horrour of sin a spot so black as could not be washed out but by the blood of JESUS CHRIST That remission of it might be given us it was necessary the Father should deliver up His dear Son to dye and the Son give His blood the preciousest jewel of the universe a thousand times more worth than heaven and earth and all the glory of them From this meditation conceive a just hatred against Sin since it is so abominable in the eyes of this Soveraign LORD on whose communion alone depends all your bliss shun it and pluck it out of your Consciences and your hearts As for sins already committed seek the remission of them in the blood of CHRIST Give your selves no rest till you have found it till you have obtained grace till it be exemplified in your souls by the hand and seal of the Holy Ghost Lay by the pretended satisfactions and merits of men Have no recourse but to the righteousness of JESUS CHRIST which alone is able to cover our shame and render us acceptable to GOD. But having once obtained pardon for the time passed return not into it for the future When sin shall present it self to you repell it couragiously opposing to all its temptations this holy and healthsome consideration It 's my Master 's the murtherer of the LORD of glory It 's the accursed Serpent that separated man from GOD that put enmity between Heaven and earth that sowed misery and death in the world and obliged the Father to deliver up His Son to the sufferings of the Cross GOD forbid I should take into my bosome so cruel so deadly an enemy But from this same source we may also draw unspeakable consolation against the gnawing guilt of sin and the troubles of Conscience For since it 's by the blood of the Son of GOD that we have been redeemed what cause is there to doubt but that our remission is assured The superstitious hath reason to be in continual affright since man in whom he puts his confidence is but vanity The propitiatory I present you Faithful soul is not the blood of a man or of an Angel creatures finite and incapable of sustaining the eternal burnings of the wrath of the Almighty It is the blood of GOD's own Son who also is Himself GOD blessed for ever It 's a blood of infinite value and truly capable of counter-poising and bearing down the infinite demerit of your crimes Come then sinner whoever you be Come with assurance How foul soever your transgessions be this blood will cleanse them away How ardent soever the displeasure of GOD against you be this blood will quench it Only bedew your soul with it Make an aspersion of it on your hearts with a lively faith and you shall no more need to fear the word of the executioner of the avenges of GOD. But Faithful Brethren having thus assured your Conscience by the meditation of this divine blood of our LORD admire ye also His infinite love which He so clearly sheweth us and confirmeth to us This King of Glory hath so loved you that when your sins could not be pardoned without the effusion of His blood He would dye upon a Cross rather than see you perish in Hell He poured out His blood to keep in yours and did undergo the curse of GOD that you might partake in His blessings O great and incomprehensible love the singular miracle of Heaven which ravishest men and Angels What should we fear henceforth since this great GOD hath so loved us Who shall condemn us since He is our surety Who shall accuse us since He is our Advocate He hath given us His own blood What can He any longer refuse to bestow on us He hath laid down His soul for us how much more will He grant us all other things that may be necessary for our salvation But as this thought doth comfort us so ought it to sanctifie us Of what Hells shall not we be worthy if we love not a LORD who hath so passionately loved us If we obey not His commandments who hath blotted out our sins If for this precious blood which He hath given us we do not render to Him ours and consecrate to His glory a life which He hath redeemed by the offering up of His own in sacrifice for our salvation And after an example of so ravishing goodness how can we be ill affected to any man Christians GOD hath forgiven you a thousand and a thousand most-enormous sins how have you the heart to deny your neighbour the pardon of one slight offence He hath given you His blood you that were His enemy How can you refuse a small almes to him that is your Brother and that upon the account both of nature and grace Let the goodness of the LORD JESUS mollifie the hardness of your heart let the vertue of His blood melt your bowels into sweetness into charity and into love both toward Him and towards His members Discharge you this very day at His table of all the bitter passions of your flesh Put off there pride hatred and envy and clothe you there with His humility and His gentleness Do him new homage and give Him oath to be never any others but His alone presenting your selves with deepest respect before this Throne of His grace Remember both at this time and ever after that blood by which He hath obtained Redemption for you that is the remission of your sins This blood is the peace of Heaven and of earth This blood hath brought us out of Hell and opened Paradise unto us It hath delivered us from death and given us life This blood hath blotted out the sentence of our curse that stood registred in the Law of GOD it hath stopped the mouth of our accusers and pacified our Judge This blood hath effected a renovation of the world It hath quickned the dead and animated the dust and changed our mortal flesh into a celestial and divine nature Dear Brethren GOD forbid we should tread under foot a thing so holy or account such precious blood profane or common Let us reverence it and receive it into our hearts with an ardent devotion And may it display its admirable efficacy in them causing the royal image of GOD even holiness and righteousness to flourish there to the glory of the LORD and our own consolation and salvation Amen THE VII SERMON COL I. Ver. XV. Vers XV. Who is the image of the invisible GOD the first-born of every
render every man perfect in CHRIST JESVS For the first when he saith that he preacheth JESVS CHRIST his meaning is not simply that he speaks of JESUS CHRIST to those whom he instructed There never was an heretick but made some mention of Him and for the colouring of his dreams did mingle with them somewhat of the mystery of JESUS CHRIST even Mahomet himself the desperatest of all impostours that ever debauched men from the Gospel doth nevertheless speak of Him with honour and acknowledge in gross the truth of the call and doctrine of JESUS But the Apostle signiâ—ies that he declareth JESUS CHRIST alone preacheth none but Him that He is the only subject of His preaching and the filling up of his teachings according to the profession he expresly maketh elsewhere that he determined to know nothing among them 1 Cor. 2.2 whom he taught but JESUS CHRIST crucified His Epistles in which he hath left us a lively and a true picture of his preaching do sufficiently justifie his speech For such as have read those divine writings see that they are filled from the beginning to the end with JESUS CHRIST alone This adorable name shines out every where in them and there is no tract or chapter but it is engraven on it There are scarce two periods found together in which it doth not appear If he be to teach he proposeth no other secrets but those of the nature or the offices or the actions or the passions or the promises of JESUS CHRIST If he must combat error he wields no other weapons in it but the Cross of JESUS CHRIST If he aim to clear the obscurities either of nature or of the Law JESUS CHRIST alone is the light he useth to dissipate all kind of shadows and clouds From Him he fetcheth consolation for souls cast down either by the sense of their sins or by the heaviness of affliction In Him he finds all his motives and arguments for our sanctification JESUS CHRIST alone furnisheth him with all that 's necessary to pacifie our consciences to make glad our hearts to raise our hopes to confirm our faith to enflame our charity to inkindle our zeal to stiffen our constancy to encourage our patience to purifie our affections to loosen us from the earth and lift us up to heaven JESUS CHRIST is all his Logick and all his Rhetorick He is the rise of his arguments the magazin of his arms the great motive of his perswasions the soul of all his discourses In the determinations of this holy Doctor you no where meet with either Pope or Mass or devotions to Saints and Angels or Purgatory or auricular confessions or so much as one of those pretended mysteries that fill up the modern Theology He was fully content with JESUS CHRIST He believed it enough to preach Him and that he needed no more either to discharge his own duty or to advance our edification and truly he had reason For what is there I do not only say necessary and useful but any way good or great and excellent which is not in JESUS CHRIST Though other things which are recommended in religion were as true as they are false and as innocent as they are pernicious yet it is evident that in comparison of CHRIST JESUS they are miserably poor and childish In Him alone is found such true solidity as is able to content the soul in Him alone is wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption all the fulness of the Godhead all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge as S. Paul will tell us hereafter In this LORD alone is grace truth and life There is no salvation in any other Acts 4.12 No other name hath been given under Heaven unto men whereby they must be saved And yet alas though this be a truth so clear in it self and so authentically confirmed by the practice of our great Apostle there are people that professing to believe it do for all seek that elsewhere which is to be found in JESUS CHRIST only and having this living and overflowing spring of grace opened to all believers by the loving kindness of the Father yet go digging in the poor Cisterns of the creatures for the water of salvation They acknowledge that the merits of JESUS CHRIST are infinite His righteousness absolutely perfect His grace inexhaustible His power supereminent but they are not content with it however They adjoyn their satisfactions unto His the prayers of Angels and Saints to His intercession and do mingle the sufferings of men with the blood of the Son of GOD. But if the lusts of the world or the false blaze of error or the corrupt inclinations of the flesh do induce them to approve or to bear with so dangerous a mixture let us for our part Dear Brethren whom GOD hath delivered from such prepossessions adore the fulness of JESUS CHRIST Let us content our selves with his richness and never seek any true good any otherwhere than in Him Bless we GOD that from the Pulpits erected among us we hear no name sounded forth but His. Since S. Paul preacheth none but Him it is greatest reason that He alone should take up the mouth of Preachers and the faith of their hearers But the Apostle having declared the subject of His preaching addeth the matter of it We preach CHRIST saith he admonishing and teaching in all wisdom These are the two parts of the office of a good Preacher to wit admonition and instruction The first compriseth all the remonstrances that are made to sinners whether to reprehend their faults or to excite their diligence or to comfort their sorrows or to advertise them of any other part of their duty The second conteineth all the lessons of heavenly doctrine the exposition of each of the articles of the mystery of godliness Admonition reformeth manners teaching informs faith The one moveth the will and the affections the other instructeth the understanding The Apostle protesteth elsewhere Act. 20.21 31. that he carefully joyned these two offices together not contenting himself with teaching and testifying of faith in JESUS CHRIST but moreover incessantly admonishing every one with tears And you see these two wayes meeting thoughout his Epistles in which he not only expoundeth the mysteries of faith but ever and anon descendeth to the applying of those instructions to the carriage of those whom he instructeth reproving them chiding them comforting them encouraging them as they had need And as he practis'd thus himself so he gave order for the like procedure to others whom GOD had called to the holy ministry 2 Tim. 4.2 1 Tim. 3.2 2 Tim. 2.24 Tit. 1.9 2 Tim. 3.16 17. Preach the word saith he to Timothy be instant in season and out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all sweetness of spirit and doctrine And elsewhere he wills in general that every Pastor be not only apt to teach but also able to admonish by sound doctrine and to convince gainsayers Indeed these two offices are
countrymen and also by the Gentiles He was beaten imprisoned scourged stoned He was in shipwracks on the Sea in dangers and deaths upon the Land He was brought to be at the mercy of robbers in desarts beset round in cities both with weapons of enemies and the ambushments of false friends He was reduced to nakedness to cold to hunger and thirst It 's this hard and terrible chain of labours and sufferings which he meaneth here when he saith Whereunto I also labour combating But Oh the deep humility of this holy Soul he immediately gives the glory of these merveilous exploits to the sole vertue and assistance of the LORD JESUS I labour and combat saith he according to His efficacy which worketh powerfully in me He exerciseth the like modesty elsewhere when having said that he had laboured abundantly more than they all he presently takes up himself and adds yet not I but the grace of GOD which is with me It is the invincible force of this grace of the LORD JESUS which he calleth here his efficacy and he saith it worketh powerfully in him or with power to signifie the admirable effects which it produced in him first in that it raised up in Him the light of knowledge the love of holiness charity towards the LORD's flock such prudence and wisdom as were necessary for the instruction and government of souls Secondly in that it endued him with a more than humane courage with an immoveable constancy and firmness both that he might not sink under the burden of such great and continual labour and that he might patiently and cheerfully bear the persecutions and tentations which were still let loose upon him the LORD making things tend to His glory and the advancement of his work which seemed so contrary thereto as He promised him elsewhere that His power should be made perfect in his infirmity Thirdly in accompanying the Apostles preaching with diverse miracles which ravished men and authorised his words Rom. 15.18 19 as he expresly testifies in another place I will not dare to speak of any of those things which CHRIST hath not wrought by me saith he to make the Gentiles obedient by word and work through mighty signs and wonders Lastly this Divine vertue of our Saviour did also magnificently appear in the success he gave to Pauls labour opening the hearts of those that heard him and causing his voice to enter into them notwithstanding all the impediments of nature with such a miraculous blessing that he made his Gospel to abound from Jerusalem and round about even to Illyricum subduing nations and converting them gloriously to the service of His Master It 's this that he represents here to the Colossians in these words even that he laboureth and combateth according to the efficacy of CHRIST which worketh powerfully in him And it excellently conduceth to his design which is to shew the truth of the Gospel he preached which shined forth clearly in those many miracles they being as seals by which the LORD confirmed it I confess now that this great example doth particularly reflect on such as GOD hath called to the sacred Ministry of His house and it sheweth them on one hand how painful their office is that it is a work as the Apostle faith otherwhere a work I say rather than a dignity 1 Tim. 3.1 2 Tim. 4.5 a labour and not a recreation For the discharging of it worthily they must toil and strive watch in all things endure afflictions and do the work of Evangelists And it teacheth them on the other hand that they must not recoil for those great difficulties but trust in the grace of CHRIST and expect from the sole efficaciousness of His assistance that light that strength that patience and constancy which is requisite for the finishing of so laborious a course since it is He alone who rendreth us meet for these things strengthning us in weakness comforting us in trouble encouraging us in difficulties susteining us under assaults and so conducting us that though we be nothing of our selves 2 Cor. 3.5 yet in Him we can do all things who maketh us able to be Ministers of the new Testament But though S. Pauls example do particularly respect Pastors yet it appertaineth also to all true Christians in general since there is no one of them but is also in some sort the LORD's servant hath of Him the managing of some of His Talents and is called to labour and combat Let us consider then all of us in common and joyntly make our improvement both of the preaching and of the labouring of this great Apostle He still at this day declares to us the same CHRIST whom he preached heretofore to all the nations of the world Though the Organs that sound it to you be incomparably weaker than his were yet it is his word that you hear the same word and the same CHRIST that yer-while converted the universe The same Paul whose voyce had then so much efficacy speaks yet to you daily He addresseth to you the same doctrine He sets before you the same wisdom He admonisheth and teacheth every man among you Do not abuse so great a blessing do not frustrate the labour of this holy man of it's true and just effect The end of His preaching is that you all may be perfect This is the mark to which he calls you all in common Say not to me that he speaks but to some only I admonish saith he and teach every man that I may render every man perfect in JESVS CHRIST Object not the employments which you have in the world nor the cares to which your family and your affairs do bind you up If they be incompatible with that perfection which the Apostle requires of you you must renounce them It 's an extreme folly to excuse ones self from being happy This ought to be the first and last of our cares and if we cannot attain it but by quitting of honours by losing of riches by retrenching our delights yea as the LORD saith by plucking out our own eyes and cutting off of our feet and our hands it is better to forego all this than keep it to be cast at our departure hence into the torment of eternal fire But these are vain and meer frivolous pretences to palliate our slackness If we have truly received JESUS CHRIST into our hearts neither a wife nor children nor a family nor an estate nor the honest and lawfull employments of the world will hinder you from being perfect The fear of GOD honest deportment plain-dealing and justice charity and beneficence and in a word the fanctity wherein our perfection consisteth is not incompatible with any of these things For I beseech you is it your business or your calling which obligeth you to offend GOD and injure men to pollute your body with the filth of infamous pleasures to defraud or to rob your neighbour to drown your whole life in luxury in debauches and in
link Him either with the world or with superstition And this verity that our hearts cannot have true and solid comfort but in JESUS CHRIST alone is so evident that error it self when it is pressed home is constrained to acknowledg it After sufficient dispute about the merit of its works and large boast of the worth of its satisfactions and of the value of its Pontifical indulgences Bellarmin of Justif i. 5. c. 7. and of the Intercession of its Saints it confesseth that by reason of the uncertainty of our own righteousness the safest course is to put all our confidence in the sole mercy of GOD. In other cases which concern our divertisement only I think a man may sometimes without blame chuse the longest and most hazardous way In the case of our Salvation it is an excess of folly without doubt not to take the safest Since by your own confession my doctrine or rather the doctrine of the Gospel is the safer suffer me to hold to it and to pity your imprudence who do amuse the world with that which your self confess to have less of safety and more of hazard in it But I return to the Apostle who having said That he combateth for these faithful people that their hearts might be comforted addeth in the second place they being joined together in charity Their Seducers troubled their Union and casting in a new doctrine among them as a matter of contention ruined their fraternal concord as much as in them lay drawing them into diversity of minds from whence ariseth contrariety of affections It is therefore also for the preventing of this disorder and for the preserving of union in charity among them that the Apostle had so great a conflict For as the Sea abideth peaceable and united during a calm but riseth all in waves that violently dash on one another when the wind begins to bluster So false teachers which are as the winds and gusts of hell do no sooner fall upon a Church but they disturb its peace and put all the members of it in commotion parting them asunder mutinying them and making them miserably clash with each other to their common ruin and the joy of their enemy But S. Paul teacheth us here that the mutual conjunction of the faithful in charity is necessary for the consolation of their hearts to the end saith he that their hearts may be comforted they being joined together in love Indeed what joy and what comfort can a good soul have in the trouble of division Considering withal that JESUS CHRIST who is the only source of our joy doth not communicate Himself to any but such as have a true charity who abide conjoin'd in his body by the Lands of one and the same fame and love In fine the third benefit which the Apostle desireth to preserve among the Colossians and their Neighbours is the abounding of a full and an assured knowledg of the mystery of GOD being joined in charity and in all riches of certainty of understanding in the knowledg of our GOD and Father and of CHRIST This order is well worth the noting For these three things which he hath ranked together here are of such a nature that the first depends upon the second and the second upon the third Consolation upon union in charity and union in charity upon knowledg This last is as the first degree upon which charity is rais'd up and charity as the second which sustaineth the third to wit Consolation Of these three Jewels one cannot be had without the other And as the consolation of the LORD cannot be enjoy'd without the sweetnesses of charity so charity cannot be had without the lights of knowledg But the Apostle doth not simply name that knowledg which he desireth in the faithful He describes it in stately manner as he is wont and intimateth as he proceeds the principal qualities it ought to have which he briefly compriseth in these words all the riches of full certainty of understanding that is to express this Hebrew phrase in the idiom of our own language all abundance of understanding with full assurance and satisfaction He would have therefore first that the knowledg of a Christian be understanding that is that he do perceive and see in the clearness of coelestial light those verities which GOD hath revealed to us not that we are bound to comprehend them all and penetrate the nature of them to the bottom for being the most of them Divine and Supernatural this is impossible for us but that we ought to know what is revealed to us of them because otherwise we should be in danger every moment to be deluded and to take the vain traditions of men for things taught of GOD. Whence appears how far that hood-winkt faith wherewith our adversaries do content themselves is from the knowledg of a Believer This faith if interrogated about Evangelical truth refers it self to the Church in it being ignorant all the while of what it believes and consequently having no spark of understanding Black is not more contrary to white nor darkness to light than this fantasm of faith shall I say or of ignorance to the knowledg which the Apostle here requireth in us He would have the faithful to be intelligent and these people understand nothing at all nay do boast of their ignorance imagining that it is not without merit It is therefore the faith not of a Christian away with such a thought nor of the Collier as they call it no nor of a man indued with reason but the faith of a brute which hath no understanding as the Psalmist sings Secondly the Apostle willeth that we have not meerly understanding but riches yea all riches of understanding that is a great and perfect abundance of knowledg that we be rich in this kind of wealth that we be ignorant of none of the mysteries of Divine truth that we know not the elements or the first maxims of it only but all the inferences that are necessary to guide our lives and to guard us from the ambushes of Satan amid which we go Otherwise how shall we discern the voice of the chief Shepherd from the voice of a stranger to flâ—e from the one and follow the other Whereby you see again how contrary to the doctrine of this holy man the preaching and practice of those of Rome is who license their people to be ignorant and do blame such as not contenting themselves with the first and plainest lessons of Christianity do study the bottom of this saving wisdom outragiously decrying this laudable affection as if it were the way to heresie and hell Finally S. Paul would have this intelligentness of a Believer to be besides its abounding with an entire certainty and assurance making use of a word which he often puts to signifie a full and an assured perswasion when we hold things which we believe to be sure and indubitable For though matters of faith be not laid open either to
float in your head to be pluckt away by an enemy on the first occasion It must be engraven on your heart with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond that is you should be so firmly perswaded of it as nothing may be able to efface it and enfeeble your belief of it I know well every one boasteth to be so But there is a great difference between words and things themselves Shew it me by your lives and I will credit it If you be fully perswaded of the truth of the Gospel How is it that you have not the charity which it so necessarily commandeth us How do you hate men whom it commandeth you to love and love the vices which it enjoyneth you to hate Let us lay by words and possess in deed that full certainty of understanding which the Apostle wisheth us This is the true way for us to abide all joyned together in charity to conflict with and overcome our enemies to edifie and preserve our friends to attract those that are without to retain those that are within to enjoy much consolation in all the trials of this world and to obtain in the end the Salvation and the glory of the other through the grace of our LORD and Saviour JESUS CHRIST To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit the true and only GOD be all honour praise and glory to ages of ages Amen The SEVENTEENTH SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER III. Vers III. In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and Knowledg IGnorance of the natures and qualities of the LORD JESUS is the source of all the errors and heresies which have exercis'd the Christian Church from its beginning down to this day 1 Cor. 2.9 And as S. Paul said of the rulers of the Jews that if they had known the true wisdom they would never have crucify'd the LORD of Glory So may we say of the authors of all the false and pernicious Doctrines which men have lusted to introduce into Religion that if they had duly known JESUS CHRIST they would not have ever troubled the Church I pass by the scourges of the first ages the impiety of the Arrians and the Dokites the extravagancy of the Nestorians and the Eutychians together with the numberless branches of the one and the others they all evidently sprung from ignorance of the true being of our LORD JESUS CHRIST and strike directly at Him ruining either His natures by attributing to Him the one a created and imperfect Divinity the others an imaginary and phantastique Humanity or His Person some of them dividing others confounding the natures which are united in it From the same original its clear have come those abuses and disorders which had the vogue in the following ages and which raising themselves by little and little from weak and obscure beginnings have at last got a superiority and suffocated the genuine simplicity and verity of the Gospel Hence proceeded that invocation of Saints which is at this day practised throughout all the Roman Communion Hence hath issued that second sacrifice which they call of the Altar and wherein the heart of Religion is made to consist If men had rightly known the excellency of our LORD's mediation and the effectual extent of His Cross they would never have address'd them to any other Intercessor never have had recourse to any other oblation From the said ignorance also as from a common spring of error have flowed in among people satisfactions and merits of condignity and congruity and indulgences and the rules and odly various Disciplines of Monks and in summ all Superstitions If people had well known what an one JESUS CHRIST is they would have been assuredly content with His Satisfaction and with his infinite merit and with that eternal indulgence which He hath purchas'd for all that believe and with the perfection of His Gospel Hence again hath come the setting up of another Head in the militant Church to be there as the Vicar and coadjutor of JESUS CHRIST If this JESUS whom the Father hath given over all things for an Head to the Church if the fulness of His power and of His wisdom and His infinite love had been well known never had this second Monarchy been erected in His Kingdom In fine we may say to these and to all others that err in Religion Joh. 4.10 as sometime our LORD Himself said to the Samaritan If you knew the gift of GOD and who this JESUS is that speaketh to you in His Scriptures you would seek all your Salvation in Him alone and demand of none besides Him any of the things that are necessary for the refreshment and consolation of your Souls Judg faithful Brethren how much it concerneth us to know Him well and to have Him still before our eyes Since this knowledg sufficeth to secure us from error Accordingly you see with what care the Apostle S. Paul represents Him to us and with what affection he lays out before us all the marvels of this great and divine Subject He described Him before to the Colâ—ssians in a sublime manner and to fasten their hearts to Him alone shewed them that in Him is found all fulness But he contents not himself with this He now informes them further in the Text which you have heard that in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg In these few words there is a great deal of sense and truth Therefore we will employ this whole exercise in the explaining of them to you if GOD permit noting in order all that shall seem to us necessary both for the understanding of the Text and for the instruction and edification of your Souls I know well that the relative word whom is in the Original indifferently whom or which and may be referred either to JESUS CHRIST or to the Mystery of GOD whereof he spake just before if referred to the latter it is as if he had said that in this Mystery are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and I deny not but the words so construed do make a veritable sense it being certain that our LORD's Gospel here called His mystery is an inexhaustible treasury of all saving wisdom and knowledg But it is not needful to come to this and in my mind it s more pertinent and more fluent to refer this word to the Name of CHRIST which immediately preceded and to account the Apostle's meaning is that in JESUS CHRIST are hid these treasures which he doth intend Yet at the bottom as you shall see the sense is the same which way soever of the two you understand it And for a right conceiving of it we must first refute the exposition which some do give of this Text and then assert the true meaning There are some that take these words as if Paul would say that JESUS CHRIST knoweth all things and hath so rich and so abundant a knowledg that He is ignorant of nothing It 's a mistaking of the Apostle's
intention in this place But that which they add is yet worse For from this ill interpretation they infer a false and a dangerous doctrine concluding from our Saviour's having all the treasures of Knowledg that the infinite wisdom of His Divinity was really transfused into His humane nature and by consequent all the other properties also of the Divine nature as its omnipotency its infiniteness and its presence in all places since there is the same reason for all these attributes of GOD and they are so in separable that none can have one of them without possessing of the rest See I pray you how fruitful error is and how truly it was said by one of the ancient Sages of the world That one falsity and absurdity being supposed many others do necessarily follow upon it For that which hath led or to say better which hath drawn these authors into this long series of errors is nothing but a false opinion which they have about the Sacrament of the Eucharist They incommodiously and unreasonably suppose that the flesh of JESUS CHRIST is really present in the bread And this absurdity hath engaged them by little and little in those others that are so much worse For not being able to relish that Transubstantion which those of Rome make use of to uphold this real presence of our LORD's body and deservedly rejecting it as full of absurdities and contradictions yet bent to retain their own bad presupposition they have had recourse for the maintaining of it to another well nigh as great an error namely that of Ubiquity and do affirm that the body of JESUS CHRIST is every where present and consequently in the Eucharistical signes and to defend a thing so strange and so contrary to sense to reason and to Scripture they have advanced this conceit that the flesh of CHRIST through its Personal union with the Divinity hath really receiv'd all the properties thereof that is that the Son assuming it unto Himself hath rendred it omnipotent immense and infinite a thing which hath induced them to corrupt divers passages of the Word of GOD that they might form out of them some prop for their error It is not the place here to make a thorough refutation of their doctrine nor to lament at large such persons their deserting of the truth in this particular who are illuminated with the beams thereof in others Would to GOD we might bury a fault which hath caused so much scandal in Christendom in eternal oblivion I will only touch at the concernment of the Text in hand and their abuse of it for the favouring of their opinion I say then that in this ratiocination of theirs they commit two notable faults the one that they do not take the Apostle's meaning aright and the other that they conclude wrong And to begin at the latter of these they conclude wrong for from the being of an infinite science and knowledg in JESUS CHRIST it doth not follow that the Soul of His humane nature understandeth and knoweth all the things that God knoweth as from the being of an eternal Divinity in JESUS CHRIST it no way followeth that His flesh is an eternal Divinity or from His having created the World that his Flesh created it like as if at least we may compare Humane things with Divine from a man's having in him an immortal intellect it follows not at all that his body is intelligent or immortal For as in Man there are two Substances the Soul and the Body which though united in the same subject do nevertheless conserve each of them their Properties apart the Soul its spiritualness and invisibility the Body likewise its visibility and palpableness the one a capacity to understand and will the other not after the same manner there are two natures in JESUS CHRIST which though personally united yet are not mingled or confused one with the other But retain each of them their essential and original qualities in such sort that the Divine nature abideth eternal infinite omnipotent and omniscient and the humane created in time bounded in place and endowed with a limited strength power and science Now as when we say of man in general that there is understanding and sense in him that he hath a visible or invisible essence that he is mortal or immortal each of these attributions ought to be understood in reference to that part of his nature to which it agreeth and not be confusedly applied to them both So if the Apostle had said as I grant he truly might that there is in JESUS CHRIST an infinite power or knowledg it should be referred to His Divinity and not to His Humanity For JESUS CHRIST being very GOD blessed for ever with the Father who doubts but that in this regard He is omnipotent and omniscient But thence it follows not that He is so in regard of His humane nature too And for any to deduce it from that attribution is as impertinent reasoning as if because there is in JESUS CHRIST a flesh conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin and which was infirm and crucified you would inferr that therefore His Divinity was also born of the Holy Virgin and that it too was fastned to the Cross But though it should be granted them that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg are hid in the humane soul of JESUS CHRIST yet still they would conclude wrong to infer thence as they do that the knowledg of His Soul is infinite and the same with that of GOD. We confess that this blessed Soul having had the honour to be personally united with the Eternal Son of GOD hath also thereupon been adorned with all the shining light of knowledg and wisdom whereof its nature is capable so as it may be said in this respect that all the treasures of them are hidden in it and that the knowledg which it hath of things doth much surpass the knowledg of Men and Angels both for its extent and also for its clearness and firmness Yet the nature of the subject wherein it properly resideth being finite it self is also necessarily finite whereas the knowledg of the Father and of His eternal Word is infinite even as the nature of the one and the other is infinite And it is to no purpose to reply that by this accompt the humane nature of JESUS CHRIST will have no advantage above the Saints of whom it may be said in this sense that all the treasures of wisdom are hidden in them since GOD who dwelleth in them hath an infinite knowledg and wisdom For this consequence is evidently false First by reason of the extream difference which is found between the graces communicated to the Saints and the gifts of light and knowledg that are insused into the Soul of our Saviour Secondly by reason of the infinite difference that is between their persons for though GOD do dwell in the Saints by His grace yet no one of the Saints is GOD whereas the Eternal Word
yea a glorious light that is to say great and sparkling Why then saith he that the treasures of wisdom are hid in Him whereas it seemeth he should say on the contrary that they are manifested in Him that they shine out and appear clearly in Him I answer that the one and the other may be said in divers respects For if you consider the thing in its self the treasures of wisdom are manifested to us in JESUS CHRIST and there is no purifyed Soul but sees them in Him and acknowledgeth them immediately when it views Him as the Gospel represents Him But if you have respect to the eyes and perceptions of men as they naturally are even obscured and corrupted by Sin I confess it 's hard for them to discern in JESUS CHRIST the riches of wisdom and knowledg which the Father hath put in Him and that this proceeds in part from that veil of meanness and infirmity wherewith He is as it were covered all over And this makes S. Paul say elswhere that CHRIST crucified whom He preached was to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness though to the faithful who were called He was the Power and the Wisdom of GOD. Therefore it being necessary for our Salvation that He should be born and live poorly on earth and there suffer in the end the death of the Cross which surpassed all others for cruelty and ignominy the Father who sent Him in this form cloath'd with this sad and shameful mantle that assrighteth men hath both manifested and hidden His treasures in Him He hath manifested them in Him since it is in Him and by Him that He exhibiteth to us whatsoever we ought to know for the attainment of Salvation He hath hidden them in Hun since He hath covered this treasure with such a veil as by its poor and contemptible look discourageth men and makes them say as Isaiah prophecyed He hath no form nor comeliness in Him and when we see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him But they which have their eyes purified by light from on high do discern under this appearing simplicity and humility all coelestial riches in their stateliest and most glorious form This is the Apostle's meaning here when he saith that these treasures are hid in CHRIST He advertiseth us that we must not stop at that infirmity and emptiness which appeareth at first sight in Him and disgusteth vain and earthly spirits but look within and contemplate the great wonders which GOD hath there manifested for our compleat instruction and consolation Hitherto we have examin'd the words of this Text. It remaineth that we now consider the truth in it We shall do it but summarily For the prosecution of this rich subject in its whole extent is above the ability of Man or Angel to be worthily performed so great is the heighth and depth of it But we will briefly touch its chief heads Mans true wisdom in his present state is to know His misery with the means to escape it and his felicity with the way that he must take to attain it As for our misery nature indeed hath given us some perception of it there being scarce a man in the world who sees not some depravation and irregularity in himself and whose conscience doth not reproach him with his faults and threaten the judgment of a supream justice The Law hath taught us much more of it representing GOD unto us as armed with inexorable severity against sinners and fulminating his curse upon them But beside that these knowledges are weak and are easily smothered in security there is this sorrow with them that having shewed us our misery they do not inform us of the remedy so as if they be necessary to draw us out of that folly wherein the most are plunged who confidently sleep amid the tempest and presume they are well while they have a mortal impostume in their brain or in their bowels yet it cannot be said that they suffice to make us wise seeing that for the just possession of this title a man must know not only his malady but also the means to cure it And yet though we knew it too nevertheless this would not be sufficient because besides deliverance from evil we desire also the fruition of good yea the chief Good But neither the light of nature nor even the light of the Law does reveal to us what this supream felicity is which without distinct knowing it we do desire so far are they from shewing us the way to it But in JESUS CHRIST as proposed to us in the Gospel these Verities that are necessary to render us wise are found clearly and fully all of them For as to our misery He declareth it exactly to us not by some surd and inarticulate sounds as nature doth nor by circuitions and essaies as the Law did but by the fullest and most moving way of information that ever was in the world even crying aloud to us from that Cross to which our sins had nailed Him Behold ye sons of men how horrid your crimes are since that it was necessary for the washing them away that I should come down from the Heavens shed forth my blood Behold how great irreparable your fall was since there was none in heaven or earth that could raise you up again but my self As much as the life of the Son of GOD is more precious than the life of all mankind so much clearer is the proof which his death giveth us of the horror of sin than that which we might take from the death of all that ever sinned though we should we see them stricken down together and punished by the avenging justice of GOD. But if this great Saviour do make us so feelingly perceive the horridness of our misery his end is only to make us the more ardently desire and embrace the remedy which he offereth us fully prepared from that same Cross to which he He was fastned for us I grant that the forbearance and kindness of GOD in his conduct of men though sinful might give them some sparkle of hope and his promises under the old Covenant had highly confirm'd it betimes But the Sword of his Justice dreadfully flaming in the hand of the Law perplexed them not a little and it was very difficult for them to accord His inflexible righteousness with the mercy that was necessary for them JESUS CHRIST hath removed all these difficulties and exhibiteth unto us in his Cross the solution of all our doubts Fear nothing sinner I saith he have contented the Justice of God and satisfied his Law Boldly trust his promises and approach his Throne with full assurance This blood which hath opened to you the entrance thither is not the blood of a beast nor an earthly ransome it is the blood of GOD a ransome of infinite value more than sufficient to take away your sins how infinite soever the demerit of them be But you will say This
is not yet enough for my consolation CHRIST I confess sufficiently assureth me of the pardon of my sins What assurance doth he give me against so many enemies the world the evil Angels flesh and blood in midst of whom my way doth lye But Christian doth not the same Cross which hath merited your pardon give you also clear and undoubted evidence of your safety during the whole course of your life For since you understand by it that GOD hath delivered up his only Son to death for you how can you fear that he will with-hold any of the cares of his Providence from you Yet this is not all CHRIST JESUS who sheweth us these excellent and sacred verities in his death as it were engraven in great Letters on his Cross holds up others before our eyes of no less importance in his Resurrection Believers neither the pardon of your sin nor the assistance of GOD during your life would be sufficient for you for as much as after all death will swallow you up as well as unbelievers See then further in your JESUS the truth that is necessary to compleat your consolation By committing his spirit at the point of death into the Father's hands he teacheth you that GOD will receive your soul when you depart out of the world And by rising again the third day after he assureth you that your bodies shall one day be rais'd out of the dust And ascending into Heaven he assureth you that you shall be transported thither both soul and body to live and reign there with him in eternal glory As for the way which you must take to arrive at this high happiness his whole life and his death have clearly mark'd it out to you and he still shews it you from that lofty Throne whereon he is set Tread in my steps saith he if you will be exalted to my glory Follow the example of my innocence and of my charity if you desire to have part in the Crown of my Kingdom I have born injuries with calmness and patience I have constantly obeyed my Father even unto my death on the Cross and you see the honour wherewith he hath crowned me Imitate my obedience and you shall receive my recompence This is the lesson which the LORD JESUS giveth us shewing us incomparably more clearly than either the frame or government of the World or the Mosaical dispensation ever did both the Justice of GOD that we may dread him and the Power and Wisdom of God that we may reverence him and his mercy that we may love and serve him with all the strength of our souls serve him I say not with the sacrifices of old Judaism nor with the feeble and childish devotions of Superstition but with a pure and holy heart with works worthy of him with an ardent zeal a sincere charity a constant integrity and honesty a profound patience and humility an immovable hope and confidence These are the Verities which do constitute true Wisdom all of them as you see high and sublime but in like degree useful and salutiferous Here is not question of the nature of Elements of Animals of Plants or of Meteors nor of the motions of the Sun or of the Moon or of the other Planets but of the Beeing and the Counsels and the Conduct of that Great and Most High God who made and formed all those things and in comparison of whom Heaven and Earth are but a Mite of dust Question is not of numbers and figures which can neither diminish your mseries nor make your souls happy but of your peace with GOD of your consolation in this life and of your glory and immortality in the next It 's this which JESUS CHRIST teacheth us that Divine crucified Person who dyed and rose again for us It s this he shews us represented in high and splendid colours through all the pieces of his Mystery However Nature and the Law might discover the brims and first lineaments of this Celestial Wisdom it 's he alone who hath exhibited to us the whole body and shewed us the entire frame and structure of it Conclude we then that it is verily in him that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg are hidden as the Apostle saith Embrace we this Conclusion with firm belief and upon it bless we GOD first for that he hath vouchsafed to give his CHRIST unto Mankind and particularly for that he hath communicated him unto us mercifully presenting him to us both in his Word and in his Sacraments Next pray him to open our eyes more and more that we may discern these rich and precious treasures of wisdom and knowledg which he hath hid in him Let not the vileness of his Cross nor the veil of his Infirmity nor the simplicity of his Gospel and these Sacraments wherein he is offer'd to us offend us This very thing if we consider it as we ought makes up one principal part of the wonder and that we may rightly know and value this treasure let us cleanse our minds from the clay and mire of the earth let us purifie our understandings and rid them of the sentiments and opinions of the world which being fastned to its own dung doth prize nothing but the luster of its false honours and the vanity of its perishing riches and the delight of its unseemly pleasures Let us once set free our souls from these fordid and servile passions and acknowledg as is clear and visible and justified by experience that it 's an extream error and folly to seek one's happiness in such wretched things Lift we up our eyes unto Wisdom and desire the possession and embrace the study of it It is the jewel and ornament of our nature its whole dignity stands in it Without it man is little or nothing different from beasts nay in some sort in worse case than they as sinking beneath himself and falling into utmost misery But give we good heed lest we take a shadow for substance and a phantasm for true wisdom Be not deceived This wisdom is only in CHRIST JESUS All that pretended wisdom which hath the acclamations and applauses of people whether in the Courts or in the Schools of the world is but masked folly a disguised extravagance and a painted error which passeth by the principal and necessary part and amuseth its self about that which is of no profit nor any way provides for its own welfare which is the true end of wisdom Seek it therefore in JESUS CHRIST alone It is in him that you shall find the true substance of it And as those that have any treasure are wont to visit it often and have their hearts always in the place where it is so think you night and day upon this Divine Saviour in whom are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledg Consider him pry into him and diligently sound him He is an Abyss of good things Have your hand ever there and draw thence by faith study and meditation all
both of the desire he had to see them persevere still in so good a course and of the advice he gave them not to suffer themselves to be beguiled by the perswasive words of seducers as likewise of the adding that preservative of meditating incessantly upon the treasures of wisdom which are in JESUS for the saving themselves from this mortal danger It 's now our concernment to make a good improvement of so excellent a lesson We are as much environ'd or more than the Colossians sometimes were with people that endeavour to deceive us with words of perswasion that daily make all kind of attempts upon our faith and do not forget the sophisms of subtilty or the charms of eloquence presenting error to us farded with divers specious colours For the securing of our minds from their illusions let us tell them as the Apostle teacheth us That all the Treasures of wisdom are hid in that JESUS CHRIST whom we have embraced that He sufficeth to make us wise to salvation and that we need to know none but Him to obtain happiness If with fair and artificial words they represent to us the necessity of an expiatory Sacrifice for the recommending that of their own Altars or the utility of Satisfactions to make us receive theirs or the horror of fin which hath no entrance into the Kingdom of GOD to perswade us upon their Purgatory or the need we have of an Intercessor to oblige us to have recourse to the mediation of Angels and of departed Saints or of an Head to set up their Pope Let us answer them That we have all this most fully in JESUS CHRIST that His Cross is our Sacrifice His Sufferings our Satisfactions His Blood our Purgation That while we possess Him we shall need neither an Intercessor to open the Throne of the Grace of GOD to us and render both our persons and our prayers acceptable to Him nor an Head to govern and conserve us Let us account all that would turn us aside from Him or place any part of its Treasure elsewhere than in Him to be a seduction and an illusion And as good Physicians do not only preserve from poysons but also draw profit from them by making them Remedies so let us not content our selves to keep the venom of Seducements from hurting us let us manage them in such sort as that they may serve us Let the ardency they have for Error enflame our zeal for the Truth Let their pains-taking and industry sharpen our diligence and care Let us employ that acuteness and eloquence to the defence of the Gospel which they prophane in the service of an Imposture Let us have no less affection for the Cause of GOD than they have for the matters of flesh and blood And instead of the extravagancy of some who love ignorance and rudeness because Error doth abuse Knowledg and Eloquence let us on the contrary thence take occasion to labour in adorning and embellishing of Truth that even in this respect Falshood may have no advantage above it But if the examples of enemies should be of use to us much more ought the examples of Brethren be so which wholly and solely tend to our edification Let us make our profit of that of the Colossians whose faith and order the Apostle praiseth that we might imitate it Let us put our Church into such an estate as may give joy to the LORD to His Angels and to His Ministers I may not deny but that your saith and order may be in some degree praised without flattery since by the Grace of CHRIST my Brethren you persevere in His fear and assiduously rank your selves under His Ensigns no tentation having been able hitherto to make you desert these holy Assemblies But you are not ignorant that together with this well-doing there are many miscarriages among us that there pass divers things in our Congregations smally comporting with the dignity of the House of GOD and that the hardness of some doth stiffen it self against Discipline the only Bond of Order and if our Faith be constant against Error it is too too yeilding unto Vice Dear Brethren I had rather leave the examination of it to your own Consciences than here publish our sin and shame and will content my self with telling you 1 Cor. 6.10 that the Apostle banisheth out of Heaven the vicious as well as the idolatrous GOD who hath granted us to persevere in the profession of His Truth be pleased powerfully to amend by the virtue of His Gospel the defects which His gentleness hath hitherto born with in us and sanctifie us so efficaciously that after we have glorified Him on Earth by the good order of our conversation and the fruirs of a firm and unmoved Faith we may one day receive in the Heavens from His merciful hand the Reward and Crown of blissful immortality in His Son JESUS CHRIST who in the Unity of the Father and of the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth the only GOD blessed for ever Amen THE NINETEENTH SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER VI VII VI. Therefore as you have received the Lord JESVS CHRIST so walk in Him VII Being rooted and built up in Him and established in the Faith as you have been taught abounding therein with thanksgiving FOrasmuch as man naturally loveth novelty and variety it cometh to pass that he disgusteth the best and most wholsom things when he is held any long time to the usage of them What food was there ever in the world better more savoury more nourishing and more miraculous than that Manna wherewith GOD fed the Israelites in the Wilderness pouring it down daily from Heaven upon them by the Ministry of his Angels whence it is called the Bread of Heaven and the Bread of the Mighty that is of the Angels Nevertheless this wretched people were soon discontented at it disdaining that precious gift of GOD Numb 11.6 and sottishly regretting the fruits and fish of Egypt Our soul said they is dried up there 's nothing here our eyes see nought but Manna Dear Brethren this History is a fit emblem of what hath betided men in reference to JESUS CHRIST and His Gospel the true Bread of Heaven sent down from GOD into the Wilderness of this World for the eternal nutriment of Mankind of which that ancient Manna as you know was the figure according to what Himself teacheth us in the sixth of S. John For our nature is no less delicate nor hath an appetite less extravagant in respect of the Doctrines that are necessary to seed our Souls than it hath in respect of the Meat that is ordained for the refection of our Bodies The truth of the LORD JESUS is embraced at the first with hungring and heat every one admiring the wonderfulness of this heavenly food which wholly exceedeth the productions of the earth But because though it be throughout holy and salutiferous yet it is simple and uniform the vanity of man in desiring change and variety
the importance of this duty Beware saith he lest any man make prey of you He could not more to the life or with greater elegancy express the danger of such as stand not on their guard than by this word which signifies properly to carry away the booty that a man hath taken It is not without cause saith he that I give you order to use all your abilities and to defend your selves against Error with utmost vigilancy For no small matter depends upon it It is as much as your souls your selves and the noblest part of your beeing your understandings your affections your heart comes to The Wolves and the Thieves against whom men watch with so much care do aim only at their Sheep or their Purse Those against whom I animate you aim at your Persons An Enemy against whom Cities and States do set guards doth threaten only their Goods or their Lives at most He against whom I require your watching seeketh your souls and the share they have in eternity You are the Workmanship and the Jewel of the LORD of Glory You will be a prey to Satan and his Ministers if you fall into their snares They will not be content with having taken you they will bring you into bondage and the redeemed of JESUS CHRIST whose liberty he hath bought at the price of his Divine Blood will become slaves of men and which is worse of Devils Good GOD how piercing was the eye of that Heavenly Spirit which guided the Pen of this Apostle How clearly did it see the nature and the qualities of all the things whereof he speaketh Observe how Error â—iumpheth over those whom it infecteth See the Trophies it sets up of their spoils the Fâ—tters wherewith it loadeth those whom it seduceth the yoke which it puts upon their neeks and the captivity into which it brings them and you with confess that the eâ—lects of its false and damnable conquests could not pâ—ssibly be more truly and more naturally represented to us than by saying as S. Paul doth here that it makes a prey of Christians or carries them away as booty For Error is ever insolent and whereas Preachers of the Truth do serve those whom they teach and stile themselves their Ministers as this Apostle heretofore did the Teachers of Falshood usurp dominion over those whom they have corrupted and vaunt that they are their Judges their Masters and their Lords S Paul noted it long since of the seducers of the Corinthians who as he saith 2 Cor. 11.20 enslaved them devoured them and exalted themselves over them and smote them on the face that is did put all kind of indignities upon them And the false Teachers among the Galatians Gal. 6.13 he saith did glory in the flesh of their miserable discriples They are blind that do not at this day observe the self-same thing in the carriage of those men that reign over all the multitude whom they have deceived and rear up lofty Trophies of every poor soul that they have made prey of Dear Brethren if you love the liberty which the LORD JESUS hath purchased for you if you abhor the servitude of men if you desire the fruit of the one which is immortality and detest perdition the inevitable sequel of the other in the name of GOD take heed that no man make prey of you The Doctrine of truth is enclosed within the LORD's sheepfold Abide there if you would be in safety Stray you thence but ever so little and you will fall into the hands of Wolves and Robbers Hearken not unto their babble Be not taken with their countenance Let any thing among them that may promise fair be suspected of you since their seeking only is to withdraw you from the simplicity of the Gospel Now the Apostle points at three things here which he adviseth us to take heed of in particular namely The vain deceit of Philosophy The traditions of men and The rudiments of the world Because these were the three sources from which those false Apostles that then attempted the Colossians drew all the heads of their Doctrine and the means which they used to colour it and give it that vain lustre which was needful for the beguiling of the simple and unlearned For Col. 2.23 as we shall see more particularly in the sequel of this Chapter they enjoined the worshipping of Angels a matter they had taken in all likelihood out of the Sinks of the Platonick Philosophers who storied divers things of these higher spirits and of their interposition and mediation between GOD and us for the purifying of us and the rendring us capable of supream happiness as we see even at this day in those remains which we have of their Writings Again Col. 2.23 they introduced divers voluntary devotions which did not spare the flesh and seem'd full of humility but were indeed only traditions of men without any foundation in the word of GOD. Finally it is also evident that they pressed the observation of days and the distinction of meats according to the ordinances of the Mosaical Law which are likewise stiled Elements of the World Now though these three points do particularly respect the false Teachers at Coloss yet they are common well-nigh to all such as ever set themselves to alter and sophisticate the Gospel the most part of their impostures having issued from one of these three springs We will consider them therefore briefly and distinctly by the will of God and after them the character or mark which S. Paul giveth them to wit that these things are not after CHRIST Among these things of which we are to beware he gives the first place to Philosophy It 's name is very honourable Philosophy if you weigh the word signifying the love and pursuit of wisdom But the corruptness of those men that gave their Profession this name among the Grecians did disgrace so worthy a term and made it to be the name of a Tool of Error and Imposture rather than of an Instrument of Science and Truth For the common sort of those that stiled themselves Philosophers amused themselves altogether in vain Speculations in a trade of subtilty and syllogizing and in endless disputes that yeelded men no true profit They thought they had attained the End of their profession when they had got a faculty to speak of all matters with some colour and probability so as to dazle the eyes of the ignorant and win the admiration of the half-witted This vanity rendred them odious first among the Pagans themselves where they went among the people for extravagant persons and were in little better esteem among the greater part of the better sort And for as much as of all Professions scarce any did more fiercely oppose the Gospel of our Saviour thence it came to pass that the first Christians also conceiv'd a very ill opinion of them which encreas'd when it did appear that Hereticks did ordinanarily fetch from these mens Forges the Arms
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
all this fulness As little could any man be to seek who this JESUS was of whom the Apostle speaks All knew him at least confusedly and in gross and did conceive him a man born of Mary in Judea who having liv'd some years among the Jews had been at length crucified by the sentence of Pontius Pilate and who being risen from the grave to a new life had sent forth his Apostles to preach his Gospel and afterwards afcended up into Heaven And though all did not believe that he was risen again and glorisi'd yet all well knew that this was said of him so that both the one and the other hearing JESUS CHRIST named did presently conceive in their mind the Idea of this Person born and dying in Judea at such times and at such places with some retinue of Disciples during his life and after his death This then is the subject of which S. Paul speaks even JESUS CHRIST considered under this form of a man in which he manifested himself to the world and in which he was conceiv'd and figured in the minds of those that heard him named In this man whose appearance was like that of other men who was born and bred on earth sustained during his life with our common food subject to our infirmities who passed through the differences of our ages suffer'd our griefs felt our inconveniences and experimented the rigour of death yea the cruellest that was in this man I say whose body was nailed to a Cross and deprived of its soul and buried in a Sepulcher in this man under so mean and contemptible a form dwelleth faith the Apostle all the fulness of the Godhead It is ordinary in the Hebrew Language to signifie by the fulness of any thing that which the thing containeth as by the fulness of the earth Men and other living creatures Psal 24. which do fill it and by the fulness of the Sea the Isles which the Sea containeth After this manner of expression the qualities and perfections of any one nature may be call'd its fulness because they are the things that fill it and with them it is as it were furnished and adorned as the movables and ornaments of a room or an house are the fulness of it Therefore as if I should say that in Adam as he was at first created was found all the fulness of Manhood every one would easily perceive that my intention were to say the perfections of human nature the faculties and properties and beauties which it is full of and without which it cannot sustain the dignity of that name were all in Adam â—an immortal soul a vigorous understanding a free-will a body of excellent 〈◊〉 acute senses and in sum all the other faculties that have any place among the perfections of the nature of man So here when we hear the Apostle saying that the fulness of the Godhead is in JESUS CHRIST let us account that by this clause he meaneth those perfections and qualities which fill up the Divine nature in which this great and soveraign Beeing doth consist and which Theologues commonly call the Attributes of GOD. You know what the word Godhead doth signifie even the Nature and Essence of GOD. The fulness of the Godhead then is that rich and incomprehensible abundance of perfections whereof the supream and adorable Nature is full as His Life His Power His Wisdom his Justice His Goodness His Immensity His Eternity His Holiness and all the other Properties which it hath in an ineffable manner and which our understandings according to their mean capacity do conceive in it as the form of the Deity that is necessary for its having that Name a nature that wanteth it being incapable of being called GOD otherwise than falsly and improperly I grant some resemblances or rather some touches and lineaments of these Perfections of the Godhead do appear in the noblest of the Creatures as in the Angels for instance who are immortal and endowed with an admirable sanctity vertue and power But the fulness of them is not in any Creature at all neither can it be found that ever the Scripture spake in this manner of Angels and said that the fulness of the Godhead was in them Besides these blessed Spirits and other Creatures how excellent soever you can imagine them to be do participate of these divine perfections but in a very little measure Whereas the LORD JESUS hath them wholly And to make this evident to us the Apostle thought it not enough to say that the fulness of the Godhead is in Him but hath expresly declared that ALL this fulness dwelleth in Him that we might be assured there is not at all any Perfection or Excellency or Accomplishment in the Divine Nature but is found in Him Thus in these two or three words he hath comprised all that the Scripture teacheth us in divers places of the richness of the Perfections of our LORD and Saviour For instance it tells us That he is full of grace and truth that he is the Wisdom and the Power of the Father that he hath the words of life that he is the Way the Truth and the Life that in him are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledg that he hath that might and strength which sustaineth all things now and which created them at first that he is the Everlasting Father and hath immortality and incorruption hath an infinite understanding whereby he soundeth the reins and discerneth all the thoughts of the hearts of men that he hath a super-eminent Glory to which all Creatures ought to do homage yea the Angels themselves who indeed adore Him the Empire and dominion over all the world the right and authority to judg all men and a multitude of such things as these Verily S. Paul hath comprised it all in one word saying here that all the fulness of the Godhead is in JESUS CHRIST it being evident that if he wanted any of these Names Rights and Attributes He could not have all the fulness of the Godhead which is ascribed here unto Him But let us now see in what manner he possesseth these things the Apostle expresseth it very briefly saying that all this fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him bodily First the term dwelleth is illustrious signifying that all this copious abundance of perfections doth not reside in JESUS CHRIST for some time only appearing a little while and then withdrawing again so making some transient stay in Him a few moments and no more but that it abideth in Him constantly and for ever for so the word dwell in Scripture-use doth import The Word and the glory of GOD appeared in Moses and the Prophets when being moved by the power of his Spirit they uttered and acted Divine things but it dwelt not in them It only rested on them some hours space for the LORD 's recommending those Servants of His and for the setling their authority by these marks of his Providence and of his communicating with
LORD And it must be confess'd that this figure is marvellously elegant and proper for this matter For even as the body comprehendeth in its self several members which have each of them their particular function and exercise in like manner this mass of corruption which we bear about in our nature is composed of many different Vices which have each of them their peculiar motion and operation Ambition tendeth one way Avarice and Intemperance another Envy defileth us in one manner Cruelty in another and each of these pests hath its own sentiment and ends Their motions are sometimes even contrary and do thwart one another as unclean spirits that are not at an agreement However at the bottom all these evils come from one and the same source and live in one and the same mass as all the members do make up but one and the same body Hence it is that the Apostle sometimes considering sins under this notion calleth them our members or the members of our flesh Col. 3.5 as when he commands us to mortifie our members which are upon the earth to wit fornication uncleanness inordinate affection and other like Vices Moreover as this body in which we live doth cover us all about so that mass of Vices wherewith our nature is infected doth encompass and on wrap us on all sides there being no part or faculty in us but is as it were invested and besieged with it Such is the corruption that we derive from the first Adam and by reason thereof the Apostle sometimes also calleth it the old man He saith therefore that the circumcision which we have in JESUS CHRIST is the putting off of this body of the sins of the flesh when the faithful person by the virtue of the Word and Spirit of the LORD JESUS doth cut off all the vices of the flesh which are the members thereof and strips himself of this old habit of sin and death wherewith the first Adam clothed us This is that which in the same sense he elsewhere calleth a putting off the old man as to former conversation Eph. 4.22 Col. 3.8 Gal. 5.24 which is corrupted by deceitful lusts And in this present Epistle a putting off of anger malignity and evil speaking and other such sins and again in another place a crucifying of the flesh with its affections and lusts All this amounts to the same sense and signifieth the mortifying of the flesh and the cutting off of its Vices that there may be an abstaining from all the sins which they are wont to produce in the lives of men of the world The Apostle adds in the end that this is the circumcision of CHRIST First because our LORD and Saviour hath expresly instituted it in his Gospel commanding us to be born again to deny our selves to change our deportments to put on a simplicity and humility like that of little children and to break all the ties we have with the flesh and the world if we will follow him and have part in his Kingdom This is the first and most important instruction in his Discipline Secondly It is the circumcision of CHRIST because it 's he alone who is the Author of it and doth effect it in us neither is there ought but his Gospel alone that can unclothe man of this body of the sins of the flesh For it is not possible but that a soul on whom the Doctrine of JESUS CHRIST hath been imprinted by the power of the Holy Ghost should renounce the world and the flesh Philosophy was so far from curing this malady that it did not so much as know it exâ—ctly The Law discovered it indeed and made man to feel the tyrannous strength of this rebellious body of the flesh wherewith he is naturally clothed and surrounded But it was unable to subdue and mortifie it as the Apostle teacheth us at large in the seventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans There is none but JESUS CHRIST who by the efficacy of his heavenly truths and the divine examples of his holiness thrust down into our hearts by the hand of his Spirit can circumcise us in this manner unfolding and dis-investing us by little and little of these wretched bonds and weakning and extinguishing the life of the flesh in us Compare now this Circumcision of our Saviour's with that of Moses and you will without difficulty perceive that it infinitely surpasseth it in dignity and excellency That of Moses wounded the body this of CHRIST enliveneth the soul The one par'd away a little skin the other mortifies the whole body of the flesh The one was in its self but a typical ceremony the other is a mystical verity The one mark'd the flesh the other maketh better and ennobleth the heart Without the one a man could have no part in the communion of the carnal Jews and by the other we enter into the alliance of the spiritual Jews whole praise is of GOD and not of men Whereby you may judg how extravagant the conceit of those seducers was whom the Apostle doth in this place oppose who notwithstanding that excellent and divine circumcision which Christians have receiv'd in their Saviour's School would yet bring them under that of Moses which was poor and weak and so many ways defective as if Christians could not upon a far better ground than the Jews glory that they truly are GOD's circumcised Now for a right comprehending of the force of the Apostle's reasoning it must be remembred that circumcision as well as the other ceremonies of the Mosaick Law was a figure which represented the abscission of the vices and lusts of the flesh as the Prophets themselves do clearly enough shew when they promise the ancient people that GOD will circumcise their heart and the heart of their seed Deut. 30.6 Jer. 4.4 that they may love him and live and command them to circumcise themselves unto the LORD and to take away the fore-skin of their hearts an evident sign that this external action did refer to the internal mortification and sanctification of the soul Since then the figure is unprofitable when the truth is attained and models do serve only till the things themselves be formed and perfected the use of them when this is done being no longer necessary you plainâ—y see that from the Apostle's saying here that in JESUS CHRIST we have this putting off or cutting off of the sins of the flesh that is the truth whereof circumcision was the figure and model it evidently follows that it is no longer necessary for us and that a wilful retaining of it still is an accusing of JESUS CHRIST of having not fulfilled in his Discipline the thing represented by this ancient type Iâ—'s true that even in the time of the Old Testament the faithful had some part of the sanctification signifi'd by their circumcision but what they had was weak and in small measure because the true causes on which it dependeth being all comprised in the Mysteries of
the New Testament were then but fore-told and promised not fully and clearly revealed as now by their accomplishment they have been by means whereof it was meet that during all that time they should be exercis'd in the observing of these typical rites and held in and kept under the Pedagogie of Moses until the fulness of time according to the Apostle's Doctrine in the Epistle to the Galatians Now that JESUS CHRIST hath openly exhibited the very body of truth and fully brought to light all the causes and motives of true sanctification these exercises of the Church's infancy are no longer seasonable and they that still stick to them are no less ridiculous than he that would still keep up the centries of a vault or the models of a building even after the Fabrick is finish'd and brought to its perfection or retain under a School-master's Ferule and in the restraints of childhood a man grown up and come to ripeness of years This is that we had to say for the exposition of this Text. It remaineth for a conclusion that we extract those instructions and consolations which if we meditate on it attentively it will afford us First Since the Apostle assureth us that we are compleat in CHRIST you see how vain those mens pretensions are who set forth certain rules of perfection as they call them beyond the Gospel Let us content our selves with our LORD's fulness and seek our perfection in him alone And instead of amusing our selves about the inventions of men embrace and practise CHRIST's Discipline advancing daily towards the utmost degree of perfectness For we may not flatter our selves with an imagination that a man may nevertheless appertain to him though he lead an wholly vicious and corrupt life S. Paul here protesteth plainly to us that all such as are in him are made compleat Whence it necessarily follows that such as are not compleat are without his communion and by consequence should not promise themselves any share in his salvation it being prepared for those only that are in him If this Doctrine do trouble us let us impute it to our vices and our loosness and taking once this truth to heart with all our might endeavour after that perfection which is in JESUS CHRIST accounting that without it we cannot possess either his grace in this world or his glory in the world to come I well know that to speak absolutely no one is perfect and that if we compare our condition on earth with that in heaven all our perfections are but weaknesses Yet it is true that JESUS CHRIST doth even in this life in some sense compleat his faithful ones and this perfection which he giveth them is not a vain name or an imagination It 's a thing and a most real truth it is a piety and charity sincere and free and without hypocrisie which though it sometimes fail doth notwithstanding produce true fruits and works quite different from those of Worldlings and Hypocrites according to what our LORD said even that if your righteousness do not exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven Object not that you are yet on earth and that perfection is not to be found but in heaven and that to live as an Angel one should be without a body It is not the perfection of Heaven that we demand of you The LORD will not reject you for having not had in this life the transcendent brightness of the next But though a child be not obliged to conduct his life with as much prudence and reason as a man of years it doth not follow that he hath licence to live without rule and in the debanches and disorders of slaves Every Age hath its bounds and its measures and its perfection Our childhood here below must not be without discipline under the pretence that it is not come to full growth Christians I complain not that there are defects in your knowledg and practice which have no place in Heaven but that there are in you vices which ought to have no place on earth I blame you not for that there is a great difference between you and Angels but that there is none between you and worldly men I require not what is above the strength of your age but what is worthy of your profession and doth not at all exceed your light I beseech you only to labour as much for JESUS CHRIST as the children of this generation do for the interests of their lusts This doth not exceed the capacity of our nature since you see what the servants of sin do and it s necessarily your duty except you imagine that we owe less to JESUS CHRIST than Worldlings do to their foolish and vain passions The first piece of that compleatness which we have in him is this Divine Circumcision which is not made with hand but by the efficacy of his Spirit Without it we can have neither place in the communion of his people nor right to his Inheritance It 's a Circumcision of which we may truly say that every soul that shall not have receiv'd it shall be cut off from his people The Apostle shews us wherein it consists to wit in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh JESUS CHRIST hath put the sword in our hand that 's necessary to cut away this wretched flesh namely his sacred word wherein he discovers the horridness of sin and infernal venom of vices and the vanity and iniquity of all the lusts of the flesh He hath shew'd us the perdition which they that serve it fall into and hath put it to death on his Cross and buried it in his Sepulcher He hath spread before our eyes the wonders of GOD's love and the eternity of the Kingdom appointed for faithful servants He hath given us rules and examples of this part of our sanctification in his Gospel and in his life and offereth us the lights and consolations of his Spirit to lead us in this work Grasp we then this Divine Knife of his Gospel Thrust it hardily in to our hearts and cut out thence all the impurity of the vices that are there Let us rid our selves of them and cast them behind us Exterminate all the productions of the flesh as execrable things Leave not one of them in our selves Having subdued Avarice combat Ambition Pluck out Luxury and all its passions from our inward parts Root up Hatred and Wrath and Cruelty and spare the life of none of these Monsters Let us not rest until we have cleansed our hearts of all this cursed brood For it is not enough to have cut off some of them One sole Enemy abiding in our bosome is able to destroy us The body of the sins of the flesh must be put off saith the Apostle and not one or two of its sins only I confess the labour is hard but it is necessary and that at all times for it is the
task of our whole life in especial manner at present now that the death of our LORD and Saviour and his resurrection and his holy Supper do call us to extraordinary efforts of piety and sanctity And if the labour be great the felicity and the glory that follows it is infinite Let us employ our selves in it well-beloved Brethren with ardency and generosity put off the body of all our sins that having truly crucified our old man with the LORD JESUS we may also rise again with Him to be enliven'd by his Celestial food and have part for ever after the short trials of this life in His blessed immortality Amen The Twenty-third SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER XII XII Being buried with Him through baptism in which also you are raised again together through the faith of the efficacy of GOD who hath raised Him from the dead DEar Brethren It is very true that the solemnity of this great day which hath been consecrated by all Christians to the resurrection of the LORD JESUS and sanctifi'd by the Mysteries of his Table at which we have communicated doth require more than ordinary devotion and meditations of us Yet I have not needed to seek a subject for the present exercise any other where than in the series of the ordinary Texts which I do in this place expound to you the words I have read which immediately succeed those you heard last LORD's Day excellently suiting each of those duties to which this day is particularly dedicated For they treat of our LORD's resurrection and of the fruits that redound to us thereby as also of Baptism wherein they are communicated to us and which was wont for this reason to be solemnly administred heretofore in the ancient Church on the night before Easter and of that faith by which we become possess'd of this Divine Resurgent Lastly They speak of the interest we have in his burial that sequel of his precious death the blessed commemoration whereof we have celebrated this morning Subjects these which are as is plain to all eminently meet for the devotion of this day This then shall be by the will of GOD the matter of this action Faithful Souls afford it a vigorous and a deep attention elevating your thoughts to JESUS CHRIST the Prince of our salvation and Author of our immortality whiles we shall endeavour to represent to you what his Apostle here teacheth us about our communion in his burial and resurrection You may remember that to confound the impiety of certain Seducers who would oblige Christians to Mosaical Circumcision this holy man alledg'd in the precedent Text that we have in JESUS CHRIST that substance and truth whereof the Judaical Circumcision was but the shadow and model having in him put off the body of the sins of the flesh so as having receiv'd through the grace of JESUS this mystical and divine circumcision the other carnal and typical one is altogether useless to us and cannot be desired or practis'd by Christians without wronging their Saviour He still prosecutes that same intention and to shew how rich that sanctifying-grace is which we have in JESUS CHRIST he adds that besides our being circumcised by the virtue of his word and divested of the body of the sins of the flesh we have moreover been buried with him through Baptism and further that we are therein risen again with him through the faith of the efficiency of GOD who raised him from the dead For a right understanding of these words we are to consider First The communion we have both in the burial and resurrection of our LORD JESUS CHRIST And secondly The twofold means by which this communion is given us to wit Baptism and the Faith of the efficiency of GOD who hath raised our LORD from the dead The Apostle expresseth the first point in these words Being buried with him in which also you are risen again together As for our burial with the LORD you know that having suffer'd on the Cross that dolorous and accursed death which we had merited his sacred body loosned from that mournful tree and wrap'd up in a sheet was by Joseph of Arimathea laid in a new Sepulcher where it remained three days without motion without respiration and without life in this sad state the last of our infirmities until the beginning of the third day when he gloriously rose again The transcendent wisdom of the Father which ordered all the parts of this great work proceeded thus here very fitly to justifie the truth of his Son's death by his stay in the grave For if he had resum'd his life immediately after he laid it down and descended from the Cross alive again I confess such a Miracle might have astonish'd and transported the minds of the Spectators and demonstrated that this Divine crucified Person was more than man But on the other hand it would have rendred his death suspicious and without doubt made men imagine that it had been but a feigned and false appearance and no real separation of his soul from his body which opinion would evidently have shaken and overthrown our salvation it being entirely founded on the death of the LORD JESUS Whereas therefore it so highly concerns us to believe the same GOD hath in such sort assured and certifi'd the truth that we have not any shew of reason to call it in question For this cause it was his will that the LORD JESUS having commended his spirit into his hands should be laid in the Sepulcher and continue there three days there remaining after this no more cause to doubt but that he was truly dead since he was so long a time in the state of the dead Moreover our consolation required that he should enter into our Sepulchers to take away for us the horror of them and to assure us by His example that they have not force enough to detain our bodies for ever or to hinder them from rising one day again It 's for these reasons and other such that JESUS CHRIST would go down into this death's last entrenchment The Apostle saith then that true believers have been buried with him How so you will say seeing that they being living persons were never laid in the grave and surely not in our LORD's that was situate on Mount Calvary nigh to Jerusalem places very far distant from our abode Dear Brethren there is no man so gross but doth plainly see that these words are not to be taken according to the letter but figuratively and that they signifie not a natural but a mystical Sepulcher And in such a sense it may be said two manner of ways That we have been buried in CHRIST or with CHRIST First in regard of our justification that is the remission of our sins And secondly in regard of our sanctification and the mortifying of the old man For as concerning the first it is evident that JESUS CHRIST was not buried as neither was he crucified and put to death but for us only
be put in prison of all the force it had to endamage him He effaceth it cancels it and makes it null He renders useless all the preparatives of Justice against his friend He puts the Adversary and all his Advocates to silence He stops the mouth of the Judg that was even open to decree against him He stays the Serjâ—ants and secures his liberty from their outrages This is just the thing our LORD and Saviour hath done for us But what say I he hath done thus for us He hath done for us infinitely more than all that this comes to Death and the Curse were due to us as the wages of our sins The sentence of it was written in â—he obligation of the Law which we our selves had signed and wherein we had submitted to this penalty The Judg was ready and Execution could not be avoided The LORD JESUS moved with compassion and sent by the goodness of the Father puts himself in our room as Surety and Mediator for us He pays what we did owe. He suffers on the Cross the punishment we deserv'd His Cross therefore hath struck out that redoubtable obligation which was against us He hath abolish'd and made it of no effect He hath broken all the forces it was going to raise against us He hath pacified our Judg coufounded our Accusers staid the Officers and Ministers of Justice and sav'd our persons from the fetters and torments which were prepared for us But hence again appears how vain the error of those is who pretend that GOD doth but half-pardon our sins that having remitted unto us the fault he doth exact of us part of the punishment and make us suffer it either in this life here or after death in a certain partition of Hell which they call Purgatory How could they more rudely clash with the Apostle's Doctrine He saith that GOD hath effaced cancelled and abolished the obligation which was against us These men affirm that he still makes us pay some part of our debt Sure then our obligation is not yet torn It 's a thing unheard-of in the course of Justice to bring an Action against that Debtor whose Obligation you have effaced If it be torn if it be made void and of no effect you have no longer any right to draw him before the Judg much less to get him condemned to pay If GOD who doth nothing but according to Justice should make us pay any part of the penalties of our sins which he hath forgiven us the Obligation by virtue whereof he condemneth us is still in its full force But the Apostle protesteth that it hath been effaced and remains blotted and nailed to the Cross of CHRIST for ever The Obligation which was against us imported all the punishments both temporal and eternal that we were obnoxious unto It is voided and nulled We therefore do no longer owe any of them Fear not Christian you have to do with a faithful Creditor Having remitted to you your debt yea cancell'd the evidence of it and torn the Obligation he hath no intent at all after all this to demand any part of it of you I confess that the payment JESUS CHRIST hath made is of no use to such as remain in unbelief and though he hath in point of right nulled the Obligation which was against us yet their ingratitude and infidelity is a cause that they have no benefit from this kindness of his Even as the unthankfulness and obdurateness of that servant of whom we are told in that Parable in the Gospel did deprive him of the favour his Master had shewed him in forgiving the ten Talents he owed For GOD hath affixed this reasonable condition to the Covenant of Grace which he hath made with Mankind that the payment of our Debts made by our Surety should not be allowed to any but those that believe so as they that obstinately abide in incredulity have no share in that impunity or in those other benefits which this great Mediator hath obtained for us But as to the man that believeth and by a true faith applieth applieth to himself the death and blood and merit of the LORD JESUS there is no more any condemnation for him Rom. 8.1 as the Apostle elsewhere saith nor by consequence any punishment the obligation by virtue whereof alone he could be condemned at the Tribunal of GOD having been effaced abolished and fastned to the Cross of his Saviour Thus you see Beloved Brethren what that grace of GOD is which the Apostle hath here made known and by what means we may get part in it Sinners you that groan under the heavy load of your crimes that feel your misery and perceive the cords of that damnation in which the Law doth entangle you come unto the Cross of CHRIST and you shall find rest to your souls Your consciences accuse you and compel you to subscribe your own condemnation acknowledging the justness thereof But how just soever it be the Cross of JESUS freeth you from it forasmuch as it hath fully fatish'd for you Beware of the error both of the ancient and the modern Pharisees who pretend ability to pay what they owe and even more than they owe and to justifie themselves by their works that is by the Law The Law is the instrument of our condemnation and the ministration of our death and a man that would be justified by the Law commits no less an extravagance than he that to prove he owes nothing should produce in Judgment the Bills and Bonds he hath given his Creditors Confess you your debts Divest your selves of all presuming upon your own righteousness Declare that of your selves you are bound over to eternal malediction that you have deserv'd it and do present your selves naked before GOD who justifies the ungodly He will clothe you with the righteousness of his Son And you Faithful Brethren who are already entred into this blessed Covenant Live ye in peace and quietly wait for the fruit of your faith according to the promises of GOD. Let not the thundrings and lightnings of the Law make you afraid Let not that death with which it so severely menaceth the sons of men terrifie you at all Let not World or Devils the Executioners of its Justice astonish you JESUS CHRIST hath brought to nought all their strength by effacing the obligation that was against us Satan thou cruel enemy of our repose object not to us our sins We confess they are greater and yet more grievous than thou canst express Lay not before us that clause of our old Covenant which puts all that have sinned under the curse We confess we have merited this curse But know Satan if we have deserv'd death JESUS CHRIST hath suffer'd it for us and if we have committed sins worthy of thine Hell the Blood of the Son of GOD hath blotted them out His Cross hath made void that old piece upon which thou makest such a clamour that rough obligation with which thou incessantly
confess I have done wrong to accuse you of crossing the doctrine of S. Paul But who knows not that it is a devotion for dayes and not the profit of men that makes you observe them You believe you do GOD service in this very thing that you feast one day and fast another You give it to the dignity of the day and not to the necessity of order or to your edification neither do you esteem dayes alike Those which you observe you set up very high above others not only by reason of the Church's command but because they have the honour to represent and signify some mysterious thing Accordingly you hold that besides the use which Festivals may be of for your instruction and your having time for works of piety your very solemnizing of them is a Religious act such as makes up a part of Divine service and is as you say meritorious in the sight of GOD which is exactly the opinion and the practice of those whom the Apostle in this place doth oppose For they condemned Christians not for absence from the assembly of the Church on the day appointed for it or for having profaned such howers in the world as were destin'd unto the service of GOD or for having scandaliz'd their neighbour by this kind of fault but only and precisely as you do for not having celebrated a Festival-day What shall I say of the other point to wit the use of and abstinence from meats The Apostle saith Let no man judge you in eating In conscience dare you affirm that you judge none of the faithful in this behalf What mean then those so rigorous laws of yours against them that eat any flesh those laws of yours that deprive Christians of this liberty for more then one third of the year and condemn that man who during all this time shall tast one bit of Bief or Mutton to as heavy penalties as if he had committed a deadly sin You are come so far as you look not upon those who violate these fine laws as sinners You abhorr them as proâ—ne persons and Atheists and count them not for Christians Is not this a grave and holy discipline and well worthy of S. Paul and JESUS CHRIST to make the service of GOD consist in meat whereof neither abstinence Matth. 15. 1 Cor 8 8. Rom. 14.17 nor use as reason sheweth every one and as our Saviour and His Apostle do teach doth pollute or sanctify doth bring loss or gain it being a thing purely indifferent in it's self good or evil only as it hurts or helps the interests of temperance and charity But we shall have shortly a fitter occasion to speak unto you of this subject more at large For the present Beloved Brethren make your profit I beseech you of S. Pauls instruction Use the liberty which the LORD JESUS hath obtained for you as His Apostle doth declare It is not reasonable that men should take from you what GOD hath given you and bought with the precious bloud of His Son Only see Gal. 5.13 that you take not this liberty for an occasion to live after the flesh Lay by shadows since you are no longer children But embrace the body which is in JESUS CHRIST His Kingdom is neither meat nor drink and no one will He condemn for having eaten any of the things which he hath created for the faithful to use with thanksgiving If He otherwhile prohibited some of them it was to deliâ—â—ate and figure out by this fleshly abstinence that which is mystical and spiritual whereunto He hath shaped you by His cross Your abstinence Christian is to renounce the meat that perisheth to loath the passions and productions of vice whereon the world doth feed It nourisheth it's self with the works of sin Avarice and ambitions and injustice and luxury and the ordures of wantoness and the infamous sweets of revenge are the aliments it runs after and cannot live without This is O ye faithful that flesh the usage whereof is forbidden you This is the Lent which JESUS CHRIST and His Apostles have in truth enjoyned a Lent to be observed not fourty dayes only but all the year long even that we abhorr what is evil that we eschew vice as poison that our lives be pure and innocent and clean from all the filthines of the flesh This is in truth that abstinence that makes a Christian and without which no man can have place among the members of CHRIST Gal. 5.24 6.14 For they that are His have crucify'd the flesh with the affections and lusts therefore The world is crucify'd to them It 's provisions it's pleasures it's allurements are had in execration of them Whoever he be that fasteth this Lent exactly he shall have part in the resurrection of CHRIST JESUS Not a man shall attain thereto otherwayes Prosecute it in good earnest Christian Souls and powerfully mortify in your selves all the lusts of this accursed flesh which perisheth it's self and will make all those perish too that desire it's delights and cannot wean themselves from it's deadly dainties See what JESUS CHRIST hath done and suffer'd for the destroying of it See the excellency of that other divine food on which He would have you live Your true food is to fulfil the will of His Father This is the food of the Prince of glory and of all His Angels food that is holy and immortal which will leave in your Souls a divine relish and contentment much better then all the feasts on earth and after the consolations wherewith it will solidly strengthen your consciences in this life eternally repast you in the Heavens with the delights of blissful immortality Brethren this is the body whereof the abstinence of the Jews was the shadow and delineation only As for their festivals they were also figures verily not of those in Rome which to say true are meer shadows and weak repesentations themselves no less then these of the Jews only they are instituted by men whereas the Jewish were ordeined of GOD they were I say figures of the resting and spiritual contentment of the faithful Origen against Cels s. l. 8. p. 404. Our festival as one of the ancients heretofore answered a Pagan that reproached Christians for their having none our festival is to do our duty to worship GOD and offer Him the unbloudy sacrifices of our holy supplications to rest from our own works and entirely sequester our selves to the work of GOD to exterminate from among us that really servile and mechanick labour of vitious actions and spend our lives in the truly noble and divine exercise of Sanctification Our Passeover is to eat the flesh of the Lambe to make use of His bloud to pass out of Egypt unto Canaan out of the world unto GOD and from Earth to Heaven leaving the things that are behind and advancing daily towards the mark and prize of our calling Our Pentecost is to converse with CHRIST in heavenly places
Scriptures of GOD they plead to us that they are voluntary services which are performed with a good intention and do tend to humble the Spirit Their Fastings and Abstinences their Watchings and Pilgrimages their Whippings and Disciplines and all the odd exercises of their Monks are not in the least commanded of GOD. But what skills it The more voluntary they are say they the more meritorious and then on the other hand they mortifie the body which they spare not at all having no regard to the satisfying of its desires There 's nothing but they might make pass for good and godly with this specious pigment I might justly plead against these vain pretexts that GOD's will ought to be the rule of ours and that it is dangerous to trust our intentions in matter of Religion seeing it often comes to pass that GOD hath that in abomination which does most please our thoughts as also that it is a proud and an extravagant humility to give men a power over our Consciences which it is the prerogative of GOD alone to have and that if the not sparing of the body do serve for the mortifying of it it follows not that we must place divine service therein I might alledge these and many other things and found them by the Scripture to demonstrate the vanity of their pretexts But for this time I content me with the Apostle's example and authority He acknowledgeth that the Doctrines of those Seducers whom he doth oppose had these three very colours and that the same gave them a shew of wisdom And yet for all this he doth not forbear to reject them making so little account of that shew of theirs that he vouchsafes not to spend one word upon the refutation of it How specious soever their Doctrines be it 's enough for his condemning them that they were instituted and taught by men and not by the LORD clearly presupposing by this procedure of his that all Christians should hold it for an undoubted maxime that Religious service must be measured by the will of GOD and not by ours by His order and not our phansie and that the foundation of our humility is the respect we owe him not to submit our Consciences to any besides Him Let then the Traditions of Rome in other regards be of what quality you please let them have all the colours of wisdom let them be voluntary and humble and meet to mortifie the flesh You will do much by setting all this pompous shew in view You will gain much by laying it forth before mine eyes and declaiming to me of the advantages of those things I cannot receive them except you shew me that it is GOD hath instituted them and not the will of man The Apostle hath taught me to make so little account of these kind of reasons as that I should not vouchsafe so much as to amuse my self to consider them After having heard you it sufficeth me to tell you as he saith here to the Seducers of his time that if your Doctrines have this shew of wisdom which you attribute to them they are in conclusion but humane things since GOD hath not at all commanded them in His word Yet upon thorough examination it will be found My Brethren that the most of their inventions do want not the reality alone but the colour and the very shew of wisdom For I beseech you what shadow of wisdom is there in this Lent for instance which they began the other day after the ordinary Preface of their Carneval What reason or common sense is there that can affirm if it be free that it is wisdom after license taken for all kind of debauches and fooleries to imagine an handful of ashes will efface it all That it is wisdom to believe the eating of Fish is fasting That it is wisdom to think the eating Herbs or Salmon or Green-fish is a sanctifying ones self and that to taste but a bit of Bief or Mutton during these forty days is to defile ones soul with a sin mortal and meriting eternal fire as if the whole nature of things were changed in a moment and the living Creatures of the earth from being good and wholsome as they were but four dayes ago became contagious and deadly Is it wisdom to tye up Christianity to an observance which hath so little reason in it and to say as they do that such as eat any flesh within this time are not Christians There is no understanding how ordinary soever but may easily judge that all this hath no shew of wisdom in it to say no worse And it is to no purpose to tell us that it 's not the nature of the things themselves but the commandment of their Church that makes them be of this opinion For if these things be not true in themselves their Church does ill to authorize them and besides that it contravenes the rules of wisdom evidently violates those of charity also as straitning the way to Heaven and augmenting the difficulty of entring there and damning men for things which without its commandment would be free and indifferent Let us lay aside then I beseech you my Brethren all these humane Commandments which are so far from being just and necessary that they have not for the most part so much as that vain shew of wisdom which the Apostle granted the Doctrines of the Seducers of his time had Hold we to the Sacred and saving institututions of our LORD JESUS which all are just all reasonable all full of deep Mat. 16.11 and truly Divine wisdom Let us believe as he hath taught us that 't is not what enters in at the mouth that doth defile a man but what cometh out of the heart and that the Kingdom of GOD Rom. 14.17 is not meat or drink but righteousness peace and joy of the Holy Ghost Serve we Him according to His own rule and not according to the imaginations of men Let our will be bound up to His let it count it self happy in following the same and not presume to guide it self Let it learn of Him what it oweth Him not be so arrogant as to define it after its own phansie The task He hath given us is great enough for our employing all the time and strength we have without diverting ought of the same any other way It 's in this that true humility consists even in submitting absolutely to JESUS CHRIST in refusing no particular of what He would have in attempting nothing beyond His orders He it is clear would have us to love GOD with all our heart and our Neighbour as our selves and that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in the present world looking for His glorious appearance This Beloved Brethren is the rule of the Israel of GOD that was delivered by JESUS CHRIST Preached by His Apostles confirmed by their Miracles and by the Conversion of the World Peace and Mercy be to all that shall
and a vapour Again as the creatures there possess true glory so do they exercise true sanctity All of it that 's seen here below is but a little sparkle of the perfection of those blessed inhabitants of that coelestial City The love they bear to their LORD is there perfect as well as the knowledge they have of Him Charity towards our neighbour concord union truth do there reign absolute Their souls have neither affections nor desires but which are conform unto the will of GOD. The light of his face governeth all their motions and shedding abroad its self continually upon them maintains them in an eternal holiness peace and blessedness The LORD JESUS hath discovered to us all these wonders above the Heavens having brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel But further He hath certified us to that these are things which concern us and pertain to us and opened by His cross and resurrection the way that will most assuredly bring us to them If we have the courage to follow Him of what condition or quality so-ever we may be He will congregate us to this holy company of His servants receiving our souls into His bosome upon their departure from this earth and raising up our poor bodies themselves one day revested with His immortality and His glory These be Dear Brethren the things which are above that the Apostle willeth we do seek in the same sense that our Saviour commands us in the Gospel Matth. 6.33 to seek the Kingdom of GOD and His righteousness signifying by that term First that we propose Heaven and Eternity to our selves for the utmost end of our whole life and place our supreme happiness in this rich possession that we make it our grand and only design And secondly that we employ in this noble persuit all the might we have seriously using all the means that the Word of GOD prescribeth us faith invocation piety sanctity and flee as a mortal pest every thing that keeps us off or turneth us aside from this mark For Prov. 21.25 as to the slothful who does nothing all day but desire and sets not his hand to the work he hath no part in those heavenly things His desire kills him saith the wise man as one that feeds on nothing but wind there must be knocking there must be seeking there must be working out our salvation with fear and trembling This treasure is not for cold and languid wills that evaporate altogether in vain wishings It shall be that man's prize who shall take it with an ardent and a generous courage and impulsed with a violent affection spare neither pain nor watching nor labour to obtain it That which the Apostle commandeth us in the following verse namely to mind the things which are above doth amount to well-neer the same sense For the word he useth comprehends the two actions of our souls towards objects we love the one a considering them and thinking on them the other a desiring and embracing them in our affections So you see he obligeth us first to list up our hearts to Heaven where the LORD JESUS is and to have that blessed Kingdom continually before our eyes which GOD hath there prepared for us together with all those great eternal good things wherein it consisteth He requireth that this thought do fill our souls day and night that it be the thought that hath superiority in them that governs all the motions of them the thought that regulateth our resolutions and decideth all our doubts That in all things which shall present themselves we ever reflect hereon to see how they refer unto it and whether they be compatible with it Such was the practise of the Father of the faithful He looked saith the Apostle for a City that hath foundation And Moses the grand legislator of the Jews He had regard saith the same Apostle unto the recompence that is as he explains himself in the Text They minded the things which are above And this thought as you see is also necessarily conjoynt with affection with an ardent desire of possessing such amiable and excellent things and with a stedfast hope of enjoying them at length This is then my Brethren the first of those two duties which the Apostle requireth of us to wit that we seek the things which are above Now unto it he annexeth a prohibition which follows necessarily from it namely that we seek not the things which are upon the earth Heaven and earth being so opposite as it is is not possible but they who seek the things of the one must renounce the things of the other The things of the earth are as you know the goods of the World riches gold silver honours pleasures and the like all that which earthly men the children of this generation do esteem and passionately love He does not mean we should have no care at all about the necessaries of the present life for the good things that refer thereto being gifts of GOD which we cannot be without one may both acquire and serve himself of them with thanksgiving yet not cleave unto them and use them yet not abuse them And the Apostle you know other-where commands us to have care of our families and to do every one his own business and to labour with our hands that we may carry our selves honestly towards them that are without and that we may have lack of nothing But he forbids us to seek the things of the earth in the same sense that he commanded us to seek those of Heaven that is to place our chief good in them and to desire them with choicest affection and prefer them before any other consideration It 's thus that those men sought the things of the earth Phil. 3.12 Luke 14. of whom the Apostle saith elsewhere that the belly was their God and they gloried in their shame and those in the Gospel-parable who preferred the care of their fields and of their oxen and the love of their wives before the call of Heaven Such a one in the Old Testament was that Esan who chose a little pottage of lentils rather than his primogeniture Such in the New were those sordid Gadarens who would have the Son of GOD be gone because He had made them lose their swine and those that love their fathers or mothers or brethren or other alliances or their worldly possessions more than the LORD JESUS or that prefer the praise of men before the praise of GOD. Such a one also was that besotted rich man who thought himself happy enough because he had goods laid up for many years and dreamt of nothing but enjoying them Now though the bare dignity of heavenly things and the meer meanness and unprofitableness of earthly things should be sufficient to recommend the former and to disgust us at the latter yet the Apostle for the swaying of us to duties so just as these sets before us two excellent reasons the first whereof is drawn from our
us unto so just a duty Seek the things which are above where CHRIST saith he sitteth at the right hand of GOD. For it as our LORD sometime said where our treasure is there be our hearts also where should our souls be but in Heaven since it is in that blessed dwelling place that their treasure doth reside JESUS their good their life and their joy in whom is hidden all our felicity In time past under the Mosaical Law the faithful alwaies turned their eyes and thoughts towards the Temple at Jerusalem because it was the abiding place of the pledges of GOD's covenant with them and of the most precious symbols of His presence and glory Judge what our affection and earnestness should be for Heaven which containeth the true Ark of GOD where all the fulness of His Godhead dwelleth not in shadow and figure but really and bodily But there is more yet JESUS CHRIST is our Head and we His members How can we conserve this honour but in keeping close to Him and following Him faithfully without ever separating from Him or withdrawing from that Sanctuary where He dwelleth And indeed He expresly assures us in the Gospel that He willeth we should be where He is and that where the dead body is there also the Eagles gather together so as if we be truly of the number of His Eagles it is not possible but we should take our flight to Heaven since this divine body of our LORD and Saviour is there And hereby you see dear Brethren to note it by the way how distant the doctrine of St. Paul is from that of Rome For whereas the Apostle elevateth our hearts from earth to Heaven Rome brings them down as far as in her lyeth from Heaven to the earth fastning the hearts of her zealots on her material altars and ciboires which she pretends the LORD is enclosed in against the suffrage of the whole Church who hath ever constantly applied these words of the Apostle particularly to the Sacrament of the Eucharist exhorting the faithful when they celebrate it to have their hearts above Sure if JESUS CHRIST be here below as Rome would have it the Apostle does ill to command us to mind the things which are above and worse again in urging for a reason of it that it 's above that JESUS CHRIST resideth If for that the LORD is in Heaven we ought according to the Apostles instruction not to seek any thing on earth how much less I beseech you ought we to seek the LORD Himself there I do not advertise you that this is to be understood of the presence of the humane nature of JESUS CHRIST For you know that He is every where as to the essence and providence of His Divinity And as to the grace of His Spirit and the efficacy and virtue of His will and institutions we readily confess that the same is not confined to the Heavens and doth extend and shew its self wheresoever He pleaseth according to the promise He hath made us to be in the midst of us when we are assembled in His Name But the Apostle doth not barely say that JESUS is in Heaven He adds that He sitteth at the right hand of GOD. Divers Doctors have belaboured themselves much in the explicating of these words and at length there are some that have strangely disguised them as if they signified that our LORD 's humane nature had been invested with all the properties of the Divinity which would be no other thing but that it was transform'd into a Divine nature a conceit which all true Christians have horrour for confessing that the two natures do remain each of them in its integrity having been united in JESUS CHRIST but not blended together nor confused The Apostle if we please to hear him will tell us in two words what it is to sit at the right hand of GOD. For in the 15th Chapter of the first Epist to the Corinthians speaking of the estate to which JESUS CHRIST hath been exalted in the Heavens and in which he shall abide constantly unto the end instead of its being said by the Prophet from whom the expression was taken in Psal 110. that the LORD should fit at the right hand of the Father he saith simply that He shall reign till He hath put all His enemies under His feet an evident sign that this sitting at the right hand of the Father is nothing else but that supreme dominion which hath been given Him over all things and which He doth and shall exercise unto the end of all ages inasmuch as GOD hath made Him LORD Acts 2.36 and CHRIST as St. Peter speaks And this consideration doth again mightily strengthen the holy Apostle's exhortation For since Heaven is the throne on which the Prince of the Universe doth sit and from which He dispenseth and governeth all things at His will there is great reason we should turn our eyes thither-ward and have this Royal Court of our Soveraign in mind night and day to comfort our selves under the trouble that either the iniquity of men and devils or the intemperateness of other creatures does give us and to form our manners and all the parts of our life after the will and by the example of so great and so holy a Monarch Behold the Lesson Beloved Brethren which the Apostle gives us at this time that we seek not low but high things not those of the earth but the things of Heaven since we are risen up with JESVS CHRIST who is sat down on high in Heaven at the right hand of GOD. What would there be in all the World more happy than we if we took up a good and a firm resolution to obey Him and practise the thing He enjoyneth us These fears and these desires and so many other vain passions which trouble our whole life would have no more place in us We elevated far above that which men unprofitably covet or possess or apprehend should with Angels enjoy a Divine contentment From that glorious Heaven where we should be we should despise the vanities and variations of the earth and see its seasons pass on and its elements roul about and its idols perish and its pleasures fleet away without any perturbation being secure that none of its storms can ever reach that high and inaccessible region where our hearts and lives would be We should look upon death without terrour knowing that it could not take any of those things from us which we possess on high We should suffer all the accidents of this life without emotion because they can change no part of the things we have in Heaven The charms also and illusions of the World would touch us as little as its menaces and raging because the fruition of a greater good would render us insensible for lesser ones as the presence of the Sun puts out the shining of the stars Being content with Heaven and its eternity we should covet nothing more and satisfied
any other of the Ministers of JESUS CHRIST doth any where injoyn us to wear hair-cloth or to disfigure our countenances with a multitude of fasts and watchings or to go barefoot or to put on a cowl or renounce the usage of any of the meats which GOD hath created for our service much less to cover our selves with dung and filth or to gore our selves all over with disciplines Isa 1.12 God will one day say to those that amuse themselves in such mortifications Who hath required this at your hands and why have ye suffered so much in vain Gal. 3.4 The only mortification he demands of us is that of the old man that we beat down our vices and not that we rend our bodies that we deface our passions and not our countenances that we renounce our lusts and not His gifts That we give the discipline to our manners and not our shoulders As for our selves My Brethren I acknowledge that we have renounced the mortification of the superstitious the misery is we do not practise that which is our Saviours though without it no man can have part in Him or His kingdom as the Apostle intimates plainly enough here where he doth not own any person for a member of CHRIST risen who is not dead and else-where he affirms in expresse terms that they that are CHRIST's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts We amuse not our selves in bodily exercise No but neither do we more heed that of the spirit We spare our hearts no less than our bodies and do not treat the vices of the one any whit more roughly than the skin of the other Men see sufficiently by the actions of our lives that the members of this old man whom the cross of CHRIST hath condemned unto death remaining very far from being dead are scarce wounded in us that they are not so much as scratch'd that they live in us in their full strength and vigour and no more feel our Saviour's nails and thorns than if He had not died or we not believed in Him at all Our adversaries are nor to seek how to charge it home upon us and it is the only one of their arguments that puts us to confusion We easily answer all their other reproaches There 's none but this wherein our consciences enforce us to separate the cause of JESUS CHRIST and of His Gospel from our own For if His truth were to be judged of by the quality of our deportments who could defend it seeing the horrible disorder that generally appeareth in our lives Let us consider only the two articles here touched by the Apostle unchastity and avarice In conscience is the one and the other of these two passions dead among us Have they not as great a vogue as among the men of the World Is the modesty of youth the honesty of marriage is chastity and temperance better practised here than other-where Doth the fordidnesse and eagernesse of avarice less appear Verily I am extremely asham'd to say it all is alike except that those without do confess and discipline themselves and macerate their flesh with some kind of fasts and say their chappelet whereby at least they shew some sense of their faultinesse though they apply ineffectual and ridiculous remedies of it Whereas we after committing the same faults and dabling in the same filth come to present our selves impudently here without fearing GOD or having shame of men And if the voice of the LORD that resoundeth in this place do draw some sigh from us at our going hence we return every one to our vices as pleasant and as obstinate as ever GOD is so good that He hath hitherto attended our repenting But let us beware lest our obduratenesse do change His patience into fury and constrain Him in the end to punish such a refractory contempt of His word and His favours and avenge the affront we do His Gospel by living so ill in so fair and so divine a light Let us all descend into our selves Let us examine our carriage and our consciences Let each one interrogate himself Come my soul after so many moneths and years that JESUS CHRIST hath so carefully instructed thee what pains hast thou taken to conform thy self to Him and to imprint the image of His death and of His life upon thy behaviour Hast thou nailed thine old man to His cross Hast thou mortified his members Hast thou deprived them of that wretched vigour which they display with so much efficacy in the children of disobedience Do they leave thee at rest Or when they begin to trouble thee hast thou the courage to resist them Doth not avarice stretch out thine hand upon the goods of others or doth it not with-hold the same from imparting of thine own unto the poor Hast thou not felt its vain sollicitudes and fruitless melancholies it's insatiable cupidity and unbridled eagerness and that impudence it hath to despise and violate honesty laws and decency for the satisfying its inordinate desires But if avarice hath not importun'd thee tell me my soul hath not the lust of the eyes and the vanity of the flesh at one time or other insnared thee Hath not this traiterous Dalila lulled thee asleep Hast thou guarded the glory of that Nazareat to which GOD hath consecrated thee from her ambushments Brethren let us thus catechize our souls daily and about our other duties as well as these Let us not pardon them any thing Judge we them righteously and with inexorable severity Chastise them for all their faults and bringing them down at the feet of GOD make them weep and grone in His presence Let us reproach them with their ingratitudes and set before their eyes the benefits of GOD and the offences with which they have recompensed Him Denounce we also His judgements on them and the horror of His dreadful vengeance and not give them over untill they have taken a full and firm resolution to return no more to their ingratitudes Above all Dear Brethren let us make them hate and detest those two pests which the Apostle hath to day so solemnly condemned to dye to wit luxury and covetousnesse Let us execute his just sentence upon these two passions and cause them to suffer that death which they so many waies deserve For as to the first it impudently profaneth a body which belongs to JESUS CHRIST was redeemed by His blood washed with His heavenly water fed with His flesh and consecrated by His spirit Rends it from the communion of that divine body of which it is become a member to change it into one of the members of Satan Bereaves it of its glory and despoils it of the greatest honour it had and drawing it out of Heaven whither GOD had called it drags it into Hell I know well that men of the world flatter themselves and extenuate this sin And I am not ignorant that there are people among our selves who suffer themselves to be
utmost and highest point of its perfection in the Heavens when there shall be seen a compleat and Angelical sanctity to shine forth in it with glory and blessed immortality In fine the Apostle doth also briefly touch at both the manner after which and the pattern by which this renovation is wrought in us For the manner of it he saith That this new man is renewed in knowledge thereby shewing that JESUS CHRIST for the communicating of this new Nature which is in Him as in its source unto us doth give us and day by day augment the knowledge of his truth in us for as ignorance and error is the first and principal deformity of the old Man and the cause of all the rest so on the contrary Wisdom and Knowledge is the first and principal lineament of the new Man whereby are formed in us all the other vertues in which it doth consist as Love of GOD and Charity towards men and all the other holy habitudes which depend upon them it being manifest that we love none but the things we know and proportionably to the knowledge we have of them Wherefore the LORD begins the admirable work of his grace hereat And we have an excellent image of this method of his in the first Creation of the World where Moses expresly observes that the first thing GOD created by his Word was Light which is the symbol of Knowledge as darkness is of Ignorance This the Apostle plainly pointeth at elsewhere GOD saith he who commanded the light to shine out of darkness 2 Cor. 4 6. hath shined into our hearts This light of Knowledge once lighted up in our souls by the Spirit of the LORD doth presently expel Vices out of them and shewing us the holy and glorious face of GOD in JESUS CHRIST transforms us into his likeness as saith the same Apostle 1 Cor. 3.18 We all beholding as in a glass the glory of the LORD with open face are transformed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the LORD It 's this he meaneth in the Text when he saith of the new Man that it is renewed after the image of him who created it that is of JESUS CHRIST our LORD For he properly is the Pattern by which that new Nature we are made partakers of is formed He is both the Author and Exemplar of it and 't is for this that it is called by his Name to wit the new Man Therefore the Apostle elsewhere to express the end and effect of his Ministry toward the Galatians Gal. 4.19 saith That he travelleth in birth until CHRIST be formed in them He had no other design but to revest them with the new Man Certainly then the new Man is nothing else but JESUS CHRIST formed in us that is nothing else but the form of this holy and blessed LORD engraven and imprinted on us by the seal of his Word and Spirit which is precisely the thing he here calls his Image If you know JESUS CHRIST you cannot be ignorant what this his form and image is JESUS CHRIST is the Saint of Saints a man full of all purity righteousness charity patience constancy and truth and in sum of all the lights of holiness Sure then his form and image can be no other than a genuine representation of these Divine qualities a soul in which appears a goodness an humility an honesty I say not equal for it is not possible to arrive unto so high a perfection but at least semblable and proportionate to his And this is that which S. Paul elsewhere compriseth expresly in two words saying That the new man is created after GOD in righteousness and true holiness Thus you see Brethren what that Old and what this new Man is which the Apostle speaks of in this place The one is the image of the first Adam and the other of the second He commandeth us to put off the old Man with his Deeds and to put on the New a manner of speaking no less elegant than familiar in Scripture which is wont to say of all the things that are found in this or that subject that it is clothed with them As when the Prophets say that GOD is clothed with strength with Glory and with Magnificence that he is cloathed with Justice that he will cloath his Priests with salvation and their enemies with shame that he will cloath the Heavens with darkness and so in a multitude of other places where it is evident that the term Cloathing is taken figuratively to express simply the putting of any thing in such or such a Subject whether it be internally or externally Whence it follows that to put off on the contrary is simply to quit a thing which one had and rid himself of it Thus to put off the old Man is nothing else but to rid our selves of his Vices and of his corruptness to pluck up for instance out of our hearts his covetousness and his ambition and the habitudes of his other sins But the Apostle expresly addeth that we put him off with his deeds that is to say that we not only pluck up out of our hearts the habits of Vices which are as it were the roots and stocks of it but that also we cut off from our lives all the actions whether interior as desires and lustings or exterior as other sins which proceed from the same and are as so many fruits of this accursed plant For to speak properly the old man is one thing and the act of sin that issues from it another The one is the corruptness it self of our nature the other is the effect it produceth The one is as the Plant and the other as its Fruit. For example cruelty or covetousness is one of the very members of the old Man murder or stealing ing are acts of it The Apostle would have us put off the one and the other that neither Vice nor its acts might have any place in us In like manner to put on the new Man is on the other hand to deck and adorn our understanding our will our affections and all the parts of our life with those excellent vertues in which the new man consisteth as we have said afore to endeavour it studiously and take no rest till we have them formed in us and our whole nature be covered and enriched with them But though these two words to put off and to put on be in this passage figuratively taken yet do they shew us notwithstanding against the gross and sensless error of some that as well the old Man as the New do both of them signifie the form and disposition not the substance and very essence of our nature For when a thing is utterly destroyed we do not say it puts off what it had but that it is perisheth And when the substance of a thing is produced altogether of new we say not that it 's cloathed but created so as the Apostle here commanding us to
of them So is it with our LORD JESUS He is equally both necessary and approachable for all He offers Himself to the great He disdaineth not the least He gives Himself to the one and to the others and saves them all indifferently Come ye thâ—n all unto Him what-ever in other respects your condition or extraction be Lift up your eyes on Him and behold Him stretched out for you upon Moses's pole crucified for your sins and wounded for your iniquities His flesh pierced with nails His blood spilt on the ground presenting to you in this scandalous but salutiferous infirmity the treasure of life and happiness Bring unto Him souls full of faith respect and love and prepare for the receiving of Him not your bodily mouth or stomach places what-ever superstition say unworthy to lodge Him but your hearts your minds your understandings and affections that is the nobler part of your being There it is that He takes pleasure there it is that He would dwell Accordingly it's there that He should operate and display His vertue unto the extinguishing of the old man and the engraving of His own image As the body is not the object of this operation of His so neither is it the seat of His presence nor the throne of His Majesty But you plainly see My Brethren that this incomparable favour He placeth on you in being willing to come and dwell in your hearts doth oblige you to put off His enemie the old man and clear your selves of all His pollutions eradicate the habitudes of all his vices smother all his desires and cleanse your whole life from all his deeds This old man is the disgrace of your nature the poison of your soul the death of your life the cause of your unhappiness It 's he that destroyed you that banish'd you out of Paradise that bereav'd you of your true delights that made you subject unto vanity and the wrath of GOD and the hatred of His Angels and the tyrannie of Devils Devest your selves of this accursed and funestous habit Give your selves no rest till you be rid of it Tell me not that he holds too fast that you feel him sticking in your inward parts and in your marrow Where eternal salvation is concerned there 〈…〉 is to be taken If you cannot rid your selves of him other 〈…〉 better to pluck out your very bowels than spare them and pe 〈…〉 the truth is we slatter our selves and that to keep this pleasing enemie with us we makes our selves believe he is part of us as if we could not be mâ—n without fouling our selves in the dung of his vices Be not afraid of hurting oâ— outraging your selves by driving him from you It 's but the pâ—st and poison of your nature as we said afore Your life will be not as you imagine incommodated but discharged more free and more happy by it thâ—n it was Besides after the victory over him which CHRIST hath won upon the Cross it ill becomes us to complain of the strength of this enemie All his strength consisteth only in our cowardice in our feebleness and effeminacy JESUS CHRIST hath taken from him all the true strength he had He hath crucified him and overthrown all the foundations of his tyrannie and of his life discovering to us the horridness thereof and opening us the way to liberty and the gate of the house of GOD. Instead of this wretched and fordid and shameful form of life let us put on that new man who now presents and gives Himself unto us Let us have Him night and day before our eyes as the only exemplar of our true nature Let us copy Him all out and faithfully engrave upon our souls all the features of His Divine and glorious form Let the image of this new Adam shine forth in our whole life in our souls and in our carriages Dear Brethren it must be acknowledged that hitherto we have greatly failed in this duty For what is more unlike than we and this JESUS CHRIST to whose image we should be conformed He is humble and meek and pâ—tient as a lamb We are fierce and proud and cholerick as Lions He did good to His enemies and we hardly spare our friends He lov'd the greatest strangers and we hate our neerest neighbours He was most pure and holy and we are polluted with the ordures of intemperance He sought only His Father's glory and the salvation of men We muse upon nothing but earth and consider only our own interests With this dissimilitude or to say better contrariety how can we pretend to have put on the new man which is created after the image of JESUS CHRIST And how can it be thought but that we rather bear the image of His enemie Yet you are not ignorant what depends upon it and do well know that it is not possible to have part on high in the glory of the new man except we put him on here below In the name of GOD Beloved Brethren and as your own salvation is dear to you travel on this great and necessary design Repair the negligences of the time pass'd and discharging for the future with good fidelity what the Apostle's word and the Sacrament of this mystical table do equally require of you put off the old man who hath destroyed you Put on the new man who hath sav'd you renewing you in the knowledge and unto the likeness of this sweet and merciful LORD who died and is risen again for you that after you have born on earth the image of His holiness and charity you may bear it eternally in the Heavens together with that of His glory and immortality Amen THE THIRTY NINTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER XII XIII Verse XII Put on therefore as * Elected of Gods Saints c. chosen of GOD holy and beloved bowels of mercy kindness humility meekness patience XIII Bearing with one another and pardoning one another if one hath a quarrel against the other even as CHRIST pardoned you so also do ye DEAR Brethren That which the Sacrament of the LORD 's holy Supper requireth of us and which it effecteth and produceth in us when we duly receive it is the very thing which the Apostle commands us in this Text and unto which he formeth us by these words of his He willeth that we be merciful kind humble meek patient and facile to pardon one another And the end and effect of the Sacrament is to make us so For it communicateth the LORD JESUS CHRIST unto us not that the substance of his Body may enter into ours nor that his flesh may be touched by our mouths and stomacks a thing both prodigious and impossible and which is moreover unprofitable and superfluous but indeed to transforms us into his Image and render us like him that is humble meek patient kind and merciful as he is forming these divine vertues in us by the essicacy of his Death which is celebrated in this Mysterie Whereby you see a
faithful it mingleth and consociates them changeth them into one body and one spirit gives them the same will and the same affections Now surther it is to form and conserve this holy union among us that the Apostle does recommend to us the peace of GOD in the second part of this Text. Let the peace of GOD saith he hold the first place in your hearts to the which you are called in one body For this peace of GOD is not that which we have with GOD by faith in JESUS CHRIST His Son when as being appeased by the satisfaction of His Crosse He looks upon us in Him with a propitions and favourable eye as a Father and not as a Judge not imputing our sins to us which may be termed Peace of conscience But it is the peace we ought to have with one another all of us living amiably together as children of one and the same Father and heirs of one and the same grace and glory It 's the daughter of Charity and a fruit of that holy and Christian love which binds us perfectly together The Apostle calls it the peace of GOD first because He loves it above all things and upon this account is often stil'd in the Scriptures the GOD of peace hating nothing in the world more than trouble and discord and contentions and wars Secondly because He commands it us every where in His word And lastly because He is the Author of it who gives it and inspires it by His Spirit into all those that are truly His children And the Apostle hath expresly given it this title in this place for the more effectual recommending of it to us and that He might induce us to receive it with the greater respect as a thing of GOD's holy sacred and divine which we cannot violate without offending grievously that Soveraign Majesty to whom it doth belong 〈◊〉 many waies He willeth that this Peace of GOD do hold the chief place in our hearts The term he makes use of in the original is admirably expressive and elegant for it properly signifies to have the super-intendance of a thing to be the judge and arbiter of it to govern and regulate it and give it law That is the Apostle means that this Divine peace be the Queen of our hearts the mistresse and governesse of all your motions that that keeps them in due respect and with-holds them from ever attempting ought that tendeth to violate or disturb it And if the resenting of an offence for instance or an opinion of our own worth or any other such consideration do begin to kindle wrath or hatred or animosity against our brethren or excite some other passion of like nature in our hearts that this Peace do forthwith advance and stay the commotion and agitation of our minds calming the storm and speedily repelling all these sentiments of the flesh as so many incendiaries or evil spirits without giving them entrance or audience That it do enjoyn us and inspire into us humility and patience when we have been offended regret and the making of satisfaction when we have offended any other and cause us to seek carefully after all that it shall judge necessary to maintain amity and good intelligence among us as kind words and obliging deeds banishing both from our mouths and from our manners all that 's apt to cause or keep up our dividing from our neighbours The advertising of us that this is the peace of GOD were enough to perswade us to give it such place in our hearts But that the Apostle might overcome all possible obstinacy he here further represents unto us two considerations besides which oblige us to give it this super-intendency over our souls The one is that we are thereunto called and the other that we are one body For the first you know that our LORD and Master JESUS CHRIST doth every where call us to this Peace of GOD and that He hath given us precepts for it in His Gospel and examples of it in His life For what was there ever in the world more meek and peaceable than this Divine Lamb He contended not Mat. 12.19 nor cryed and His voice was not heard in the streets as the Prophets fore-told of Him He was gentle and lowly in heart He never repulsed any and received sinners with open arms how bad and abominable soever they had been He invited His greatest enemies unto His salvation and offered His grace to the most obstinate and bore their contradictions without answering again and their reproaches with silence and their rage without exasperation and did weep bitterly for that Jerusalem that rebellious City would not know the things of her peace Such is the pattern He gave us commanding us likewise expresly to be sweet Mark 9.50 and simple as doves without gall and without bitternesse and to be in peace among our selves And His Apostles repeat this lesson to us in divers places Rom. 12.8 as St. Paul here and other-where again If it be possible as much as in you lyeth have peace with all men And it 's for this that JESVS CHRIST came into the world even to pacifie Heaven and Earth Jews and Gentiles Isa 2.4 11.6 7 8. to extinguish enmities and wars and change swords into plow-shares and spears into pruning-books to take away the poison of asps and the cruelty of wolves and the fierceness of lions and transform bears and the savagest beasts into lambs Isa 66.12 and make them all live and dwell peaceably and amicably together finally to make peace overflow as a river as the ancient oracles had magnifically foretold Isa 9.5 by reason whereof He is also expresly stiled the Prince of Peace And you know it was the legacy He bequeathed us when He was preparing to dye for us Joh. 14.2 Peace I leave with you said He my peace I give unto you not to speak of the blessing and the dignity He promiseth those that shall love the same Blessed saith He are the Peace-makers Matt. 5.9 for they shall be called children of GOD. After all this who can doubt but He calleth all His unto peace as the Apostle here affirms Since He forms them to it by His voice by His lise by His promises and by the whole design of His Mediatorial Office But besides the command and order He hath given the very estate and condition He hath by His vocation put us in doth manifestly oblige us thereunto and this the Apostle represents unto us in the second place when having told us that we are called unto peace he adds in one body or to express the full and whole force of the Greek words in one only body It 's a doctrine universally received and most expresly asserted in divers places of Scripture that the whole Church doth make up but one only mystical body of which JESUS CHRIST is the head and the faithful are the members being animated under Him with one and the same
so dwelleth in the humanity of JESUS CHRIST that the same one who is man is also truly GOD these two natures being so strictly united that they are but one only and the same person by means whereof it may be rightly said that if the Word of the Father be almighty and eternal as indeed it is omnipotency and eternity and infiniteness are in JESUS CHRIST for He is truly the Word of the Father but it cannot be inferred that S. Peter for example or S. Paul had in them an infinite power or wisdom because GOD dwelled in them for that GOD dwelt not personally in them that is so as each of them was GOD but only by the grace of His Spirit Finally I add in the second place that all this dispute is beside the Apostle's scope whose meaning they have misapprehended For his intention here is not to speak of what JESUS CHRIST knoweth What would this conduce to the end he hath proposed to Himself namely the confirming of us in the Gospel and the fortifying of us against those traditions and speculations which false teachers would add to it that we might reject them and content our selves with this JESUS CHRIST whom the Father presenteth to us in His word Who sees not that the Knowledg which our LORD hath of things that He knoweth in Himself is altogether extraneous to this purpose For the thing in question is what we must know to serve GOD aright and be saved in the sequel But JESUS CHRIST revealeth not unto us in the Gospel all that He knoweth either as GOD or as man And so from His knowing all things it followeth not that it is enough for us to embrace His Gospel For will the false Teachers say though He know all for His own part yet He hath not discover'd in the Gospel which His Apostles do preach unto us all that is necessary for us to believe or to practise What then you will say is the true sense of these words Dear Brethren it is not hard to discern if you afford ever so little attention to the thing The Apostle considers the LORD JESUS here not simply and absolutely but so as He is set forth and revealed to us in His Gospel as far as He is the subject of the Apostle's preaching and the object of our faith It 's in this respect he saith that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg are hid in Him thereby signifying that this CHRIST who is present to us in the Gospel is an object so rich and so divine as He containeth all the matter of wisdom in Him that all the verities whereof it is composed are found fully and abundantly in Him so as for the having of true wisdom there is no need of studying any thing but CHRIST alone we need but know Him and shall be ignorant of nothing As if I should say that the treasures of wisdom or natural science are hid in the world my meaning would be not that the world knoweth the things and verities which appertain unto this science but that it doth contain them that it is a theatre whereon they are exposed to our view and an object by the contemplation whereof we may acquire and learn them And as if I should say that Man is the treasury of all the knowledg of living Creatures I should understand thereby not what man knoweth of them but what he exhibiteth of it being as an exact model and patern of all that the nature of living Creatures comprehends so as by careful studying and meditating him all that may be known of them may be drawn forth In this very manner the Apostle saying that in Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg doth shew us what is the knowledg not that CHRIST hath in Himself but which He can give to us not what He knoweth but what He maketh us to know He being as it were an abyss of wonders wherein are found all the riches of that heavenly truth in the knowledg whereof true wisdom consisteth From whence the inference he aims to make upon it doth clearly flow namely that we ought to shut our ear against any other doctrine how plausible and probable soever it be For since JESUS CHRIST is the Magazin and the treasury of all wisdom in whom is found all that we ought to know not only for necessity but even unto plenty who seeth not but that it is an extream folly for men to turn themselves another way or trouble their heads about the study of any other object And so this wisdom and this knowledg of which the Apostle speaks is not that cognisance which the LORD hath of the things He knoweth either as GOD or as Man but it is that knowledg of Divine things which we have need of for our attaining to Salvation and in the having whereof the true perfection of our nature doth consist And when he saith that the treasures of this wisdom are hid in Him his meaning is not that these Divine things are known unto our LORD such a conception would be frigid and impertinent but that they are all displayed and set forth in Him that they dwell in Him that they are found there that they are enclosed and to be seen in Him through the veil of the infirmity of His Cross which in a manner hideth and overspreads them This is in my opinion the true and genuine sense of the Apostle's expression Let us now examine each of the terms of it which are all of them wondrous elegant and rich and afterwards consider the truth of them First he calleth this wisdom and knowledg which is in JESUS CHRIST Treasures to intimate both the Excellency and the Abundance of them the word Treasure importing both the one and the other For as you know we properly call such a collection a treasure as is of things not worthless and of no value as dust or chass but precious and exquisite as gold and silver and precious stones and jewels But besides worth this term signifieth abundance also For you will not say that that man hath a treasure who hath but two or three pieces of gold or silver or a diamond or four or five Emeralds To have a treasure is to have a great and a considerable mass of rare and precious things And hereby the Verities which JESUS CHRIST exhibits and affords us the knowledg of are distinguished from those which are found otherwhere Perhaps a good number of knowledges will be found otherwhere but they are unprofitable and of no value They do not make a treasure This worthy title appertaineth only to things rare and precious But the Verities which JESUS CHRIST teacheth those that study Him are so many pearls of inestimable price they are divine jewels such as neither the barbarous Sea coasts nor the Mines of the new World do yield such as neither the Heavens nor the Earth nor any of the store-houses of Nature can furnish us with But abundance also is