actual assistance of God, whereby the regenerate, after having received habitual grace, are strengthened to perform good works, and to persevere in faith and godliness. For to man renewed and sanctified by grace, the daily aid of God is still necessary for every single act. When therefore the Apostle wishes grace to the Colossians, he desires for them the gratuitous favour of God, the habitual gifts of sanctification, and the unceasing actual assistance of God. The union of all these is necessary: inherent grace is not given unless the grace of acceptance has preceded it; neither being given is it available to the production of fruits, unless also the efficacious help of God follow and accompany it through every individual action. And peace.] The Hebrews used this expression as we use the expression health or joy: it signifies a state of things prosperous, and flowing according to our wish, marked by no calamities either public or private. So Gen. xliii. 27, Is there peace to your father? or, as we render it, Is your father well? According to Tremellius,* Is he doing prosperously? And in Psalm cxxii. 6, Pray ye for the peace of Jerusalem (i. e. Ask for those things which pertain thereto). But with the Apostles it is used in a more extensive sense, and comprehends, in a more especial manner, spiritual joy and prosperity. Therefore under this term peace Paul, in the first place, desires for them internal peace, or peace of conscience, which arises from the grace of God accepting us for Christ's sake: hence said Christ, John xiv. 27, My peace I give unto you; and the Apostle, Rom. v. 1, Being justified by faith we have peace with God. This is that peace which passeth all understanding, and it for Tremellius:-A learned Jew of the sixteenth century; a native of Ferrara, in Italy; first converted to Christianity in the Church of Rome, and afterwards to the Protestant Religion, and some time settled in Cambridge as Professor of Hebrew; but driven again to the Continent on the predominance of the Roman Catholic party upon the accession of Mary. He is celebrated for a Translation of the Bible, simple and perspicuous, and closely adhering to the Hebrew, published first in 1575, and again, with corrections, in 1587. It was very popular with the Reformed Divines.— Vide "Horne's Introduction," &c. vol. ii. under the head “Modern Latin Versions." tifies and guards the heart of a good man as with a military garrison; so Phil. iv. 7, pouphσel тàs napdías iμav, it shall keep your hearts. Secondly, as Jerome explains it, he wishes them brotherly peace; for so he means in that passage, Pacem rumpentes gratiam excludunt—breaking peace they exclude grace. And this peace is both a great and desirable good, and very frequently celebrated by the Apostles, and acknowledged as the special gift of God; whence it is said, 1 Cor. xiv. 33, He is the God of peace and not of confusion, and elsewhere (2 Cor. xiii. 11), the God of peace and love. The seeds of schism had been scattered abroad; there was need therefore of peace. Lastly, he wishes also that external peace, viz. the wellbeing of the Colossian Church, and of all the individuals in it; but yet only so far as it does not militate against their spiritual good: for sometimes it conduces more to the welfare of the faithful that they be afflicted than that they enjoy external peace and tranquillity. This is the sum of the apostolic wish: from whence we may gather many things worthy of observation. From the order itself we are taught three things: 1. Inasmuch as he places grace before peace, he teaches us that this is first of all to be desired, that we may have God propitious. If he be hostile, even blessings will be turned into a curse. 2. He teaches besides, that true peace cannot belong except to those only who are in favour with God. There is no peace to the wicked, i. e. to the man not reconciled by Christ. 3. Lastly; from the very order in which these benefits are placed, he shews that all good things which fall to the lot of the godly, are as it were streams from this fountain of divine grace. From the thing itself desired; 4. Paul shews us by his own example the duty of every minister of the Gospel; which is, not only to preach grace and peace to his people, but from their inmost souls to intreat and implore the same from God by incessant prayer: neither is sufficient of itself. 5. He reproves the folly of this world, in which almost all wish for themselves and their friends, health, riches, and honours; but grace, peace, and other spiritual good things, they neither regard, nor think of. But Christ commands us to seek first the kingdom of God, Matt. vi. 33. 6. He comforts the godly and faithful by shewing them that the grace of God, and the peace of (iod they always possess; in comparison of which good things whatsoever fall to the wicked are filth and refuse-onúßara. A God appeased, says Bernard, tranquillizes all things, and to behold him at peace is to be ourselves at peace. Bernard, in Cant. 33.* And so far as to the blessings desired. We shall now speak of the Authors of them, whom the Apostle designates in these words following, From God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. In which words he points out both the fountain and the channel of all grace, and he describes both by their relation to us: From God our Father.] The fountain of grace is God * This Bernard is termed the last of the Fathers of the Church; he was a Monk of the Cistertian order, and Abbot of Clairval, born in 1091, and who died in 1153; after having acquired the greatest authority in the Church of any person in his time, even surpassing that of the Pope himself. "No emergency of importance in Religion occurred in which he was not consulted as an oracle; his free censures were received with awe and reverence in the remotest parts of Europe; and his example rendered the new order of the Cistertians so popular, that he lived to see the foundation of one hundred and sixty Convents, which acknowledged him as their second head." He was equally distinguished in his controversies against various heresiarchs, and especially the famous Abelard, and by his successful encouragement of the second Crusade; for "through his commanding eloquence he put in motion princes, nobles, and people throughout the European Continent," and descended to the grave followed by the title of 'The Great St. Bernard.' Such sentiments, however, as those quoted from his writings by our Expositor constitute his truest greatness, and these, it seems, abound in his works, often republished in 2 vols. folio: the Paris edition of 1690 being esteemed the best. himself. For if by grace we understand the gratuitous love of God towards us, this love flows immediately from the Divine will, is not called forth by human merit: Hence says God, Jerem. xxxi. 3, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee. And most divinely does Bernard speak, in Cant. Serm. 59, And God loveth not that he derives this from any other source, but from himself the fountain of love; and therefore his love is the more intense, not so much because He hath love, as because he is himself love. 1 John iv. 16. The love of God does not find us worthy, but makes us worthy of his love. If we understand by grace the habitual gifts of holiness, it is manifest all these emanate from God alone to our souls. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, James i. 17; which the Schoolmen shew by many reasonings; viz. That nothing can be a physically operating cause in the production of grace but God alone. 1. The infusion or the production of grace is analogous to the manner of creation; inasmuch as it neither has any innate cause in the subject in which it acts, nor any materials by whose capabilities it might be educed by a natural agent: it is therefore of God alone, who out of nothing made all things, to infuse and impress grace: God will give grace and glory, Ps. lxxxiv. 12. 2. Grace arises out of the supernatural participation of God; but it is the work of the divine goodness only to communicate himself in this gratuitous manner to his creature. 3. Grace is not imprinted on the soul, unless by that cause which is able to work immediately in the soul itself; but it is the privilege of God alone to be able to glide into the human soul, and to change and incline it by internal operation: Therefore God is the fountain of grace. Hence the error of Thomas,* with Bellarmin and his other follow • Thomas Aquinas, noticed by our Author sometimes under the one name and sometimes under the other, was born at Aquino, in Italy, in 1224. The number of his works is prodigious, amounting to seventeen volumes folio; though he died as early as the age of 50. He is stiled "The ers appears evident, who attribute to external sacraments a physical causation of grace. Creator, wills good to Our Father.] God, as God, as all his creatures, but not all good. munication of the good things of nature not only to wicked men, but to the very brutes; because he bestows them as the Author of nature: but the good things of saving grace he communicates to his children alone; because these he dispenses as the Father of mercy. And for this reason the Apostle added Our Father. On this account the Saviour when he prescribed a form of prayer, taught us to invoke Our Father; because there is no hope of obtaining the good things of grace unless we are adopted among his children. And from this paternity of God he Angelical Doctor;" and his authority among the Schoolmen was almost decisive in Theology. Like our own Hooker he was little less eminent for his self-denying humility, than for his wide erudition and deep reasoning powers. It is said that when Pope Clement IV. shewed him a vast heap of wealth, observing, You see the Church cannot now say, Silver and gold have I none;' True,' replied the great Schoolman, neither can she now say to the sick, Take up thy bed and walk.'-Though, like other fallible men, and especially voluminous writers, he is sometimes found in error, yet Protestant Divines and Scholars have done justice to the vast attainments of this wonderful man. Our Expositor frequently quotes him as authority in points of importance. Dean Philpotts says, "I do not affect to be deeply versed in his writings; but I have read enough of them to bear testimony to the uncommon vigour and astonishing acuteness of his mind." (Letters to Charles Butler, Esq.) And Mr. Southey speaks of him, as “a man whose extraordinary powers of mind few persons are competent to appreciate." (Vindiciæ Ecc. Aug.) As calculated in an especial manner to stamp the character of the man, and as a hint to those who forget that, Bene orâsse est bene studuisse, it may not be improper to insert here, The Prayer of Thomas Aquinas before commencing study :"Ineffably wise and merciful Creator! illustrious Source of all things! true Fountain of light and wisdom! Vouchsafe to infuse into my understanding some ray of Thy brightness; thereby removing that two-fold darkness under which I was born, the darkness of sin and ignorance. Thou, that makest the tongues of infants eloquent, instruct, I pray Thee, my tongue likewise and pour upon my lips the grace of Thy benediction. Give me quickness to comprehend, and memory to retain: Give me a facility in expounding, an aptitude in learning, and a copious eloquence in speaking. Prepare my entrance into knowledge; direct me in my pursuits, and render the issue of them complete: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." : |