with his holy angels: then will he also be ashamed of them, and put them from In Ver. 11. Wherefore we also pray always for you, that our God may make you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power; 12. That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ. God bless that good thing which he hath begun in you, and keep you stedfast in the truth, that you look not back now after you have put your hand to the plough, and that you give no place to their dangerous and subtile persuasions who persecute you: take heed to yourselves, and beware that you put not the word of God from you. He hath shewed you his goodness and mercy in that he hath delivered you from the power of darkness, and hath translated you into the kingdom of his dear Son. I make my prayer to God without ceasing for you always, that he will make you worthy of this heavenly calling, and that he will ever more and more fill you with the riches and abundance of his goodness and mercy, that through him you may be made perfect in all good works. CHAPTER II. Ver. 1. Now I beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our assembling unto him, 2. That ye be not suddenly moved from your mind, nor troubled, neither by spirit, You are the children of those fathers which have fallen from their stedfastness, and have been led into error: beware lest you also be carried away with every blast of false doctrine. The devil is subtile, his baits are pleasant: you are weak and simple: he will soon deceive you. Here let us consider how easily man may be deceived, that so we may know the corruption and weakness of our nature, and therefore what cause we have ever to walk warily, to take heed to our steps, and to pray unto God that he will incline our hearts unto his testimonies. When I say man may be deceived, I mean not boys, or children, or fools, or the simpler sort of men; but the learned, the wise, the politic; the kings and princes of the world; the teachers and rulers also9 of the people. When Adam was yet in paradise, and made the ruler over all the beasts of the field, and was full of the graces and blessings of God, he soon departed from the counsel of God, and gave ear to the serpent; so easily was he deceived. Israel was as the apple of the Lord's eye, a people whom the Lord loved, and to whom he gave their hearts' desire. He delivered them from Pharao, and with an outstretched arm led them through the Red Sea. Who would think so great mercies would ever be forgotten? or that such a people, so well instructed in the knowledge of God, and so often put in mind of their duty, should either the 10 most part, or all of them, turn from God? Moses was absent but a while; he went aside to receive the tables of covenant: in the mean time they made unto themselves a molten calf, and worshipped it; they offered unto it, and said: "These be thy Exod. xxxii. gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt." So easily were the wisest of them, and Aaron, and the whole multitude, deceived. Judg. ii. Jer. ii. Jer. xi. Jer. xliv. Gal. iv. Gal. iii. Gal. v. Gal. iv. Psal. xiv. me. Their children after them "forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Astaroth.” "They said to a tree, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast begotten They have turned their back to me, and not their face;" saith God by the prophet Jeremy. And was this the offence but of some small number of them? were they but few, or of the baser and simpler sort, whom the wicked spirit had thus seduced, to make them forsake the true and living God, and to give the glory due unto him to dumb creatures, and to the works of their own hands? No, they departed from God in great multitudes, with full consent and unity; they warranted their doings by antiquity, and by the custom of their fathers before them. The prophet saith: "According to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah; and to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars of confusion, even altars to burn incense unto Baal." And in another place he saith: "A great multitude, even all the people that dwell in the land of Egypt in Phathros, answered Jeremy, saying, The word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hear it of thee. But we will do whatsoever thing goeth out of our own mouth, as to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour our2 drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, &c." Thus, even among that nation which God hath chosen unto himself the apostasy was so great, the departure from true holiness was so universal, that not only every city, but every street was defiled with their idolatry. And, besides the women which burnt incense to other gods, a great multitude, yea, all the people with one consent cried out against their preacher, refused to hear the word of God, and maintained their superstition. The like may be said of the scribes and Pharisees. They were wise, they were learned, and carried great shew of holiness: yet they loved darkness better than light: they were blind leaders of the blind, they despised the commandments of God for their own traditions; and not only they, but Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the gentiles and people of Israel, gathered themselves together against the Lord and against his Christ. What should I speak of those churches which the apostles of Christ planted, and watered, and confirmed in the truth? At Corinth Paul preached the gospel: they received it gladly: he thanketh God on their behalf, "that in all things they were made rich in him, in all kind of speech, and in all knowledge." Yet soon after they abused the holy mysteries, they denied the resurrection of the dead, they became carnal, and had envying, and strife, and contention among themselves. The Galathians rejoiced so much in him, that he writeth thus of them: "I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me." Yet they did not abide in the truth, but gave ear to false apostles, and were deceived. Therefore he reproveth them, saying: "O foolish Galathians, who have3 bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth?" "Are ye so foolish, that, after ye have begun in the Spirit, ye would now be made perfect in the flesh?" "Ye did run well: who did let you, that ye did not obey the truth?" "I am in fear of you, lest I have bestowed on you labour in vain.” This frailty and weakness of our corrupt nature hath shewed itself forth and hath appeared in all ages. We and our fathers have gone astray, and have followed after lies. "The Lord hath looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that would understand, and seek God. All are gone out of the way: they are all corrupt: there is none that doth good, no not one," saith the prophet David. Therefore the apostle beseecheth the church at Thessalonica, that they settle themselves upon a sure foundation, and that they be not removed from the truth. He putteth them in mind what they have heard, and of whom they have heard it, and exhorteth them to continue stedfast therein. "Neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as it were from us." Let no man entice you from the love of the truth, nor withdraw you, or remove [1 Dwelt, 1583, 1584, 1594, 1609.] [ Out, 1583, 1584, 1594, 1609.] [3 Hath, 1583, 1584, 1594.] [* Doeth, 1594.] you from that blessed hope unto which you be called, neither by pretence of revelation, which any would seem to receive of the Spirit of God; nor by pretence of any word of mine, as if I had so spoken; nor by any letter given unto you in my name, as if I had so written. In these words he doth not only strengthen them against such practices of crafty and false teachers, but giveth them therewithal a testimony of their constant abiding in the truth of the gospel. Otherwise, if the seducers had prevailed, and if the Thessalonians had yielded unto them and received their error, he would then have framed his speech unto them after this manner: O suffer yourselves to be advised. You do not run well, you have lost the high-way. Give place to the Spirit of God, submit yourselves under his mighty hand, refuse not the calling whereby he hath called you. I could speak such things wherewith you would be better pleased; but your case is such, it requireth rather free and plain and sharp reprehension, whereby you may be brought to consider and amend your errors, than fair and smoothed speech, which might hold you still in your folly. Seek therefore the kingdom of God, and the glory thereof, and seek not yourselves. Weigh truth and falsehood in an indifferent balance; so shall the heavier weight of the one soon bewray the lightness of the other. What thing in the world so massy and so weighty as is the truth? Harden not your hearts, as did your fathers in the wilderness. It is no sin to yield unto God: it is no shame to lay apart all affection, and to change your mind to the denial of all ungodliness, and embracing of true holiness. The wise man saith: "There Ecclus. iv. is a shame that bringeth sin, and a shame that bringeth worship and favour." In this sort it is likely the apostle would have spoken, if need had so required. But now, seeing them forcibly assaulted, and that yet they strived with such good courage against the persuasions of the wicked, he commendeth their stedfastness, and exhorteth them by these words not to yield unto their persecutors, nor to go from their faith in Christ Jesus. "Neither by spirit," that is, by revelation of the Spirit. The Spirit of God wrought mightily, and bestowed sundry and great gifts upon men. Christ said to his disciples: "When they deliver you up, take ye no thought how or Matt. x. what ye shall speak; for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you." And again saith he: "I will pray the Father, and he shall John xiv. give you another Comforter, that he may bide with you for ever, the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because the world seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." The Holy Ghost shall be with you, to assist you, to teach you all things, to direct your counsels, to lead you into all truth, and to preserve you from all error. Now, as the Spirit of God was among the faithful, and distributed to every man several gifts, as it seemed best to profit withal; so did the spirit of Satan wait upon the wicked, and possessed their hearts and bodies, and caused them to imagine and to do those things which were unseemly. He used them as instruments to disquiet the church of God, and to cast into it the seed of error, of untruth, and dissension. Of such spirits St John giveth warning, saying: "Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God; 1 John iv. for many false prophets are gone into the world." At what time Achab would not believe the answer which the prophet Micheas made him, there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said: "I will go out and be 1 Kings xxii. a false spirit in the mouth of all his prophets." This spirit ever walketh up and down, seeking whom he may devour, and blindeth the minds of many, that the light of the glorious gospel of Christ may not shine unto them. Take heed that you be not deceived by any such, which shall seek to abuse you by pretence of revelation. Though they shall take upon them to tell you of the day or hour of the coming of our Lord, believe them not; for the false spirit is in the mouth of such prophets. "Nor by word:" or, if any shall report and go about to persuade you that I have so spoken or taught in the congregations, or will boldly coun August. contr. Faust. Lib. xxii. cap. lxxx. Matt. xxiv. 2 Pet. iii. tenance out such matters1, and tell you, saying, I was present, I heard his words and remember them, this was the doctrine which Paul preached; refuse him that is such a one, for he bringeth not the truth unto you, but deceiveth you with lying and vain fables. "Nor by letter as it were from us." Again, it may be they which lie in wait to destroy you, for their better way, will counterfeit letters, and send them unto you in my name. This is a token in them that they be past shame: be not you carried away by any such pretence from that which we have preached unto you. We have not taught you that the day of Christ is at hand. O then be not so soon removed away unto another gospel by them which trouble you and intend to pervert the gospel of Christ. Many such sleights and false devices have been used by deceiving spirits to blind the eyes of the simple. There have been some which have set abroad their own fantasies under the names of Adam, the first man that God created upon the face of the earth, and of Cain, and Seth. Others have called their own dreams the gospel of Thomas, and of Bartholomew, and of Barnabee, and of the apostles of Christ. St Augustine saith of the Manichees: Manichæi legunt scripturas apocryphas, nescio a quibus sutoribus fabularum sub nomine apostolorum scriptas: "The Manichees read secret hidden scriptures, written I know not by what cobblers of fables under the name of the apostles." Such writings were never written by them whose name they bear, but were wickedly and falsely counterfeited under their names by sundry heretics. This is that whereof our Saviour gave us warning: "Take heed that no man deceive you; for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many." Again he saith: "If any shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe it not; for there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets." Into what shape cannot he transform himself? In whose name will not he craftily set forth his errors, which dareth falsely set himself in the place of the Son of God? This hath evermore been the practice of that old serpent, to change himself into the likeness of an angel of light; and, under the credit of holy men, to deceive the world with unholy and unwholesome things. Since the time that the church of God hath departed from her first faith, and would no longer be guided by the voice of the gospel, what and how great forgeries have there been wrought! What epistles and canons and decretals have been devised to maintain several parts of false religion, and published under the name of Clemens, Cletus, Anacletus, and of others, whereof these holy fathers never thought! Thus have they cloked themselves under the covert of the apostles, and of the fathers of the primitive church, and have soughts to win credit in the world by false shew of antiquity. It is certain that the Son of man shall come with his holy angels, and shall reward every man according to that he hath done in this life. Then will he give sentence against the wicked, and will place the faithful at his right hand. In that day "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be 1 Thess. iv. utterly burned." In that day "we which live and remain shall be caught up together with them (that are dead in Christ) in the clouds, to meet the Lord in Matt. xxiv. the air." "But of that day and hour knoweth no man; no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only," saith our Saviour Christ. 2 Pet. lii. Now, it remaineth that we see by occasion of this practice of the false prophets or false apostles, of whom St Paul here warneth the Thessalonians, how the wicked abuse the holy scriptures, and understand them contrary to their meaning. St Peter said: "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night," even as Paul had written unto this people; as also it is spoken in the Matt. xxiv. words of Christ: 66 "They shall see the Son of man come in the clouds with power and great glory." The false apostles use the same words, and wrest them to evil purpose, and take upon them to judge of the end of the world, and at what time the coming of Christ should be. [1 Matter, 1583, 1584, 1594.] [2 August. Op. Par. 1679-1700. Cont. Faust. Lib. XXII. cap. lxxix. Tom. VIII. col. 409. See before, page 113, note 8.] [3 Thought, 1584, 1594.] Christ said: "Destroy this temple; and in three days I will raise it up again.” John ii. There arose certain that did bear false witness against him, saying: "We heard him say he would destroy this temple made with hands." They remembered that temple was forty and six years a building, and thought it impossible that he could rear it in three days. They took his words otherwise than he meant. They thought of the material temple of stone in Hierusalem; and "he spake of the temple of his body." Again Christ saith: "Thou art Peter; and upon this rock will I build my Matt. xvi. church." These are the words of Christ spoken unto Peter, after he had witnessed of him that he is Christ the Son of the living God. Hereof they say, Peter is the rock, and the bishop of Rome is Peter's successor: he is the rock upon which the church is builded, and shall stand stedfast for ever. But they understand the words contrary to the meaning. For, alas! who would conceive that God would build his church upon a man, or upon any creature? Christ only is that rock whereupon his church is settled. "Other foundation can no man 1 Cor. iii. lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Therefore Chrysostom expoundeth those words: Super hanc petram ædificabo ecclesiam meam; id est, super fidem Chrysost atque confessionem: "I will build my church upon this rock; that is, upon this Matt. faith and confession." Likewise St Augustine: Super hanc petram, quam con- Hom. 13. de fessus es, &c.: "Upon this rock which thou hast confessed, upon this rock which see. Matt. thou hast known, saying, Thou art Christ the Son of the living God, will I build my church. That is, I will build my church upon myself, which am the Son of the living God. I will not build myself upon thee, but I will thee upon me." Hom. 55. in Verb. Dom. Christ saith: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of John iii. God." These words are most true. For by our own nature we be the vessels of God's wrath, and the children of damnation: unless we be regenerate, and born anew of water and of the Holy Ghost, we cannot be saved. Yet Nicodemus, a wise man, a Pharisee, and a ruler of the Jews, mistook this speech: it seemed strange unto him how a man might be born when he is old. "Can he enter," saith he, "the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? how can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?" This new birth must be from above, even by the working of the Holy Ghost. Again Christ saith: "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink John vi. his blood, you have no life in you." The Jews heard him, but mistook his words. They did not understand his meaning. Therefore they said: "This is an hard saying: who can abide the hearing of it?" They reasoned among themselves how it might be, that either he could give them his flesh to eat, or that they could take his flesh and eat it, or take his blood to drink it. "But when Jesus knew that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing." Hereof Augustine saith: Acceperunt illud stulte, &c.: "They took the saying of Christ August. in foolishly, they thought of it carnally, and imagined that the Lord would cut off xcviii.8 small pieces from his body and give it to them. Therefore they said, This saying is hard. They were hard, and not the saying. For, if they had been meek, and not hard, they would have said to themselves: This is not spoken without some cause there is some mystery hidden under his words." And again he saith: Spiritualiter intelligite quæ locutus sum. Non hoc corpus, &c.11: "Understand those Ibid. 10 things spiritually which I have spoken unto you 12. You shall not eat (with the [5 Remembered that that, 1594.] [Chrysost. Op. Par. 1718-38. In Matt. Hom. liv. Tom. VII. p. 548. See before, page 340, note 5.] [7...super hanc petram quam confessus es, super hanc petram quam cognovisti, dicens, Tu es Christus Filius Dei vivi, ædificabo ecclesiam meam : id est, super me ipsum, Filium Dei vivi, ædificabo ecclesiam meam. Super me ædificabo te, non me super te.August. Op. De Verb. Evang. Matt. xiv. Serm. lxxvi. 1. Tom. V. col. 415.] [8 1594 omits this reference.] [9...acceperunt illud stulte, carnaliter illud co- [ Id. ibid. col. 1066. See before, p. 451, note 8.] Psalm. |