58 Reflections on the Apostle's summary of the gospel. works. SECT. their gratitude for such inestimable favours, by unto himself a peculiar iii. being not only careful to avoid the practice of people, zealous of good Titus evil, but zealous of good works, active in all the II. 14. duties of life, and in every office of righteousness and goodness to each other. The highest of mankind are not above owning the obligation, and it is his will that the lowest should remem rebuke with all au 15 ber it. These things therefore speak boldly, 15 These things and earnestly exhort all thine hearers to attend to speak and exhort, and them. And, if they fail of regarding them in thority. Let no man a proper manner, rebuke them with all authority, despise thee. as one that knows he has a Divine commission to support him: and, upon the whole, let no man despise thee; but endeavour to give these exhortations with that solemnity and dignity, and to enforce them by that wisdom and sanctity of behaviour, which may set thee above all danger of contempt. IMPROVEMENT. Ver. HARDLY does the word of God afford a more instructive and comprehensive summary of the gospel, than that which is here before us. It gives us a view of the nature of the dispensa11 tion, as a doctrine of grace; and, at the same time, a doctrine according godliness. It hath appeared to all men, and it bringeth them to salvation, by inculcating the most salutary lessons that man can receive. It teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, how pressing soever their solicitations may be. It instructs us in all the branches of our duty, to God, to ourselves, and to our fel12 low Christians. It guides us to uniform and complete goodness; not extolling any one part, to the neglect or injury of the rest, but tending to produce this beautiful birth, entire in all its members, and then to nourish it to its full maturity. As we are slow of heart to attend to such instructions, it enforces them with motives the most generous and the most animating. It represents to us, as it were in prophetic vision, that blessed hope, even the 13 glorious appearance of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ ; when he shall come with everlasting blessings in his bands, to reward all his faithful people; and with the terrors of Divine vengeance, to be poured forth upon all that have rejected the autho14 rity of his gospel. And that the most powerful considerations of gratitude, may join with those of the highest interest, it directs our eyes to this Divine triumphant Saviour, as having once given himself to torture and death for us, that he might redeem us from Titus is to enforce obedience to magistrates. 111. 'from all iniquity, and purify us to himself, a peculiar people, de- ECT. voted to God, and zealous of good works. And surely if this view cannot prevail upon us to consecrate ourselves to God, and to engage with vigour in his service, we must be utterly insensible, and worthy of the severest punishment. Ver. 15 Let these lessons, therefore, every where be taught with all authority. Let them be addressed at once to the meanest and the greatest of mankind; that they may join in a pious care, to adorn 10 the doctrine of such a Saviour, and to secure their share in such a salvation. 59 SECT. IV. The Apostle concludes his epistle with exhorting Titus to recommend obedience to magistrates, and readiness to all good works; to caution against censoriousness and contention: acknowledging the grace of God, as that to which all Christians owe their hopes of salvation, and strongly pressing him to insist upon the great doctrines of practical religion, in opposition to those idle con. troversies to which many were attached. He also instructs him how to proceed with respect to heretical teachers; and closes with giving him some directions about meeting him at Nicopolis, and a general salutation to all his friends. Tit, III. 1, to the end. TITUS III. 1. TITUS III. 1. SECT. iv. III. 1. PUT them in mind to be subject to AMONG other useful lessons, which it will principalities and powbe thy duty to give the Cretans, while thou ers, to obey magis- continuest with them, remind them of being sub- Titus trates, to be ready to ject to those principalities and powers which God every good work, hath set in supreme authority over them, by no means excepting those who stand at the greatest distance from Christianity: exhort them also to obey subordinate governors; and, upon the whole, to be ready to every good work, in every no Charge 2 2 To speak evil of relation which they sustain in life. man, to be no them to calumniate no man, not to be contenbrawlers, but gentle, shewing all meckness tious, [but] gentle in their whole demeanor, shewing all meekness to all men, even those from whom they may receive the greatest pro unto all men. Vocation. mous in their lives, or crucl in their beha b We 60 SECT. iv. Titus Christians are saved by the washing of regeneration, &c. foolish, disobedient, envy, hateful, and hat vocation. Let us not bear ourselves too high- 3 For we ourselves ly, on the superiority of our own characters, be also were sometimes they now ever so blameless, or ever so exem- deceived, serving divers 1. 3. plary; for we ourselves, also were formerly lusts and pleasures, foolish, as well as others, disobedient to the Di-living in malice and vine authority, and perhaps to those whom God ing, one another. had invested with power over us; wandering from the paths both of truth and virtue, and enslaved to various lusts, and pleasures; in the pursuit and gratification of which we degraded the nobler powers of our souls. We were living in malice and envy, hateful ourselves while under the tyranny of such fierce and detestable passions, [and] hating one another, on account of little clashings and oppositions in our temporal interests, while we forgot the great ties and bonds which ought to have endeared us to each other. 4 But after that the 4 b We ourselves.] Dr. Whitby pleads, this cannot be applicable to Paul himself, and argues from Acts xxiii. 1; 2 Tim. i. 3; Phil. iii. 6. But I am persuaded that, when the apostle wrote this, he had such sublime views of the purity of God's law, and the imperfection of his own best obedience, how capable soever of being justified to men, that notwithstanding all he says in the text quoted, he could apply what he here wrote to much of his own character while an enemy of Christianity. Compare note e below. c God our Saviour.] It is observable, that God the Father is here called our Saviour, to intimate, that it was his paternal love to us that engaged him to appoint his and he saved us by the washing Son to redeem us, and to perform all those important offices for us, by which he accomplishes our salvation. d By the washing of regeneration.] This hath often been explained of baptism, and Mr. Joseph Mede insists upon it, that it alludes to cleansing the new-born infant from the pollutions which necessarily attend it. (Ezek. xvi. 4—6.) But I cannot think this interpretation at all favourable to the doctrine of baptismal regenera◄ tion; since it is not by washing the infant that the birth is produced; and therefore, it can surely signify no more, than that they who are regenerated are to be thus washed, I have observed elsewhere, that algov, the word here used, is by no means entirely They that have believed in God should maintain good works. iv. 61 washing of regenera- and the renewing of the Holy Spirit; which by SECT. tion, and renewing of its purifying influence operates at first to turn the Holy Ghost; us to God, and brings us into the number of his Titus children, and afterwards advances the happy III. 5. work, by improving us more and more in the 6 Which he shed on Divine life and image: Even by that Spirit 6 us abundantly, through which he poured out upon us richly, and abunJesus Christ our Savi- dantly, in his various gifts and graces, by Jesus our : 7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs of eternal life. constantly, that they works; these things Christ our Saviour, in virtue of whose intercession it has been imparted to the children of men; That being justified by his grace, we7 might become heirs of the most valuable blesaccording to the hope sings, according to the hope of eternal life, which as the gift of that grace he hath exhibited to our believing views, as the great and noble ob8 This is a faithful ject of our pursuit. [This,] which I have here 8 saying, and these things been attesting, [is] a faithful saying, most creI will that thou affirm dible in itself, as well as of great weight and which have believed importance; and concerning these things, these is God, might be care- distinguishing principles of the gospel, I will ful to maintain good and charge that thou steadily affirm and conare good and profitable stantly inculcate them; that so they who have believed in God, and by baptism professed to embrace this gospel, may not imagine, that by the dispensation of grace they are excused from the observation of duty; but, on the contrary, that being thus engaged, and encouraged by such grace and hope, they may be so much the more careful, thoughtful, and diligent to signalize themselves as examples of the greatest zeal in good works. These things are good and profitable to men: there is a beauty and advantage in them which nothing can equal. Let these therefore be the darling topics of thy preaching, as thou desirest the edification and salvation of thy hearers. unto men. 9 But avoid foolish But avoid, and endeavour to guard others g questions, and genea against foolish questions, which the Judaizing teachers are ready to start, that tend only to logies, entirely synonymous to λng, a laver. The sense here given of this much controverted passage is what I verily believe to be the justest and safest; though I am well aware, that the Christian church soon began to lay a disproportionable stress on forms, and to ascribe too great efficacy to the ritual of baptism. (See the preface and postcript to my Sermons on Regeneration, second edition.) e Which he poured out upon us richly.] amuse These words have been explained as re- 62 SECT. iv. A heretic is to be rejected, being self-condemned. and strivings about the amuse an idle curiosity; and those perplexed logies, and contentions genealogies,about which they so eagerly debate, law: for they are unand other strifes and contentions about the law profitable and vain. 11. 9. of Moses; for they are unprofitable and vain, Titus 10 A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition not only consuming to no purpose that time which is capable of much better improvement, but also tending to discompose the mind, to alienate the affections of Christians from each other, and to render them indifferent to the pro10 per duties of life. And a man that, on this occasion, or any other, is a factious and obstinate heretic, that introduces such controver- reject; sies as these into the church, and perversely maintains and propagates them, in a manner injurious to the peace of society, after the first and second admonition from thee and the church, given with proper solemnity, reject, and declare him unfit to be any longer looked upon as 11 a member of it. Knowing that such a one, who 11 Knowing that he is so fond of his own darling notions, that he that is such, is subvertwill ruin the peace of the church for them, and ed, and sinneth, being will not submit to thy remonstrances, and those condemned of himself. of the wiser and better part of the society, is perverted by some very ill principles, whatever zeal he may pretend for what he maintains as truth; and that he not only errs, but sins too, in such obstinate efforts to diffuse his errors, being indeed self-condemned, and judged out of his own mouth, as his own words furnish sufficient matter of conviction; and, while he makes such a breach in the church, he in effect passes on himself that sentence of separation from it, f Perplexed genealogies.] It is well known that the Jews carried their fondness for these to a great excess; and Jerome tells us, they were as well acquainted with those from Adam to Zerubbabel, as with their own names. g Heretic.] After all the tedious controversies which have arisen about the sense of this text, I have been obliged to acquiesce in that given in the paraphrase being well assured, that a person may be said to be self-condemned if he furnish matter of conviction against himself. Compare Heb. xi. 7; Mat. xii. 41, 42; Acts xii. 46: Job xv. 6; Luke xix. 22. And in deed, if Dr. Whitby's interpretation, borrowed and defended by Dr. Foster, is to be admitted, viz. that he is a heretic who teaches directly contrary to what he inwardly believes, the truth or falsehood of his notions will be a matter quite indifferent as to fixing this censure upon him; which and a man, who was really an atheist, might be subject to condemnation, as a heretic, for teaching the most orthodox system of Christianity that can be conceived, if his secret atheism should by any means be discovered. And so the word heresy will be made to signify a kind of solemn lying; which is such an abuse of speech as I suppose few will be capable of admitting. I shall only add, that, as Dr. Foster is obliged to allow there are fundamental errors, for which, how sincerely soever received and maintained, a man ought to be separated from a Christian society, the dispute between this learned gentleman and his antagonist, was brought to this question, what St. Paul calls heresy? and the hints laid down above convince me, that what Dr. Whitby has said on the head cannot be defended, even by this ingenious reviver of it. h Ther |