To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Ver. 2. Which are at Colosse] A city in Phrygia, swallowed up by an earthquake not long after this Epistle was written. God's judgments are sometimes secret, but ever just. It may be that these Colossians, being led away with the error of these false teachers (who sought to entangle them with many pharisaical observations and philosophical speculations, Col 2:16-23), had fallen from their own stedfastness, 2 Peter 2:17, had suffered a heartquake, being shaken in mind, 2 Thessalonians 2:2, and were sucked in by the whirlpool of divers and strange doctrines, μη περιφερεσθε, Hebrews 13:9. I affirm nothing, but God sometimes speaks from heaven against heretics: as he did against Arius, Nestorius, Stephen Langton, Stephen Gardiner, Arminius (who craftily revived the Pelagian heresy), all which died miserably; that I speak not of those two monsters in New England brought forth by Mistress Hutchinson and Mistress Dyer, and the fearful end that the former of these two women came to, being burnt with her family by the savages of that country. Aliorum perditio tua sit cautio. Christ will have all the Churches know, Revelation 2:23, that he is jealous of his glory, and will revenge the quarrel of his covenant. Those primitive Churches sinned away their light, and are therefore now given up to darkness. Infatuati seducebantur, et seducti iudicabantur, saith Austin; that is, being infatuated, they were seduced; and being seduced, they were justly punished. (Melancth.) They were first overspread with Arianism, and therefore now with Mahometism, which is nothing else but Arii stercus, the odour of Arius, as one rightly calleth it.