of the world, and not after Christ a." Again, " Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy-day, or of the new moon, or of the Sab- bath-days ; which are a shadow of things to come : but the body is of Christ V And then, in reference to both the characters, he says, " Let no man beguile you of your reward, in a voluntary humility, and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the Head." It seems that some of the Jewish converts were inclined to rely on angels, as their mediators with God ; for God having employed them in the dispensation of his law, they thought it probable that he would make use of them as his instruments also in communicating the blessings of the Gospel. With the heathen converts, the idea of an intermediate kind of deity was quite familiar; and, consequently, coalescing easily with the Jewish teachers in their veneration of angels, they formed, in the Church, a party, which it required all the zeal and authority of the Apostle to suppress. It was to counteract their influence that the Apostle suggested, in the words of my text,
I. A solemn caution not to depart from Christ —
It is here taken for granted, that Christians are all united to Christ by faith, as their living Head. But the Apostle declared, that the persons who were thus endeavouring to subvert the faith of the Colossians did not hold Christ as their Head ; and that to em- brace their sentiments would, in effect, be to re- nounce Christ. And
This was true with respect to them at that time —
[To worship angels, and employ them as mediators with God, was indeed proposed under an idea of " humility ;" since it was supposed, that it would be presumptuous in man to apply directly to God, except through the intervention of some creatures of a higher stamp and order ; but if they came to him through them as their mediators, they could not then fail of obtaining the Divine favour. But, whilst this was
a ver. 8. b ver. 16, 17.