Matthew Poole and continuators on Colossians 2:5

5 For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit , joying and beholding your order , and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ .

To prevent any surmise that his distance at Rome might take him off from minding of them at Colosse, he shews that the great affection he bare to them did oblige him to interess himself in all their concerns (the care of all the Churches being incumbent on him, 2 Cor. 11.28.) and therefore that his bodily con[illegible: 1 letter]inement at Rome, did not hinder his presence with them in spirit. Not that we can conclude by some extraordinary operation of the Holy Ghost, God gave him now and then a clear prospect of what they did, as he did to Elisha of Gehazi's behaviour, 2 K[illegible: 2 letters]g. 5.26. and of Ezekiel in Babylon, of the secret actions of the Iews in Hierusalem; but that he was with them as with the Corinthians, 1 Cor. 5.3. when distant in body his thoughts and affections were exercised about them.

As it follows there as moving of fears lest they should be ensnared, so of joy understanding their order, i. e. their good Estate, constitution and consent in orderly walking and discipline, 1 Cor. 14.40. 1 Thess. 4.1. & 5.14.

And the firmament of their faith in Christ, it being (if genuine) as firm as the firmament it self: stable as the Heavens and heavenly bodies, keeping their constant stations and regular courses and admitting nothing heterogeneous into them: all heavenly truths are as fixt Stars in this Orb, seeing all grace, because divine, hath an establishing property, so faith coming from the eternal mountains, All graces being connected in faith, which is a kind of firmament to them all, it comes to pass that faith in actuating any one grace, gives a strength, and further growth to every other grace.