blood he himselfe here saith it He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him and for this reason his flesh is meat indeed and his blood is drink indeed the onely meat and the onely drink which men should hunger and thirst after Other meates and drinks should be sought for yea life bodily it self should be desired onely to this End that by the prolonging of it wee might be partakers in greater measure of this meat and drink which preserves the Bodie and soul unto everlasting life 5. The Questions then to be discussed are Two First What it is to eat Christs flesh and drink his Blood Secondly What it is for Christ to Dwell or abide in us and us to dwell or abide in Him All agree that there is A Twofold eating of Christs Bodie and A Twofold drinking of his Blood One meerly Sacramental and another Spiritual Which agreement notwithstanding There ariseth A Third Question viz. What manner of eating Christs Flesh and drinking his Blood is in this place either onely or principally meant For the Resolution of this Question we are breifly to explicate each member of this Division viz. 1. What it is to eat Christs Bodie and drink his Blood Sacramentally onely 2. What it is to eat his Bodie and Drink his Blood Spiritually First then All that are partakers of this Sacrament eat Christs Bodie and Drink his Blood sacramentally that is they eat that Bread which Sacramentally is his Bodie and drink that Cup which Sacramentally is his Blood whether they eat or drink faithfully or unfaithfully For All the Israelites 1 Cor. 10. Drank of the same Spiritual Rock which was Christ Sacramentally All of them were partakers of his presence when Moses smote the Rock Yet with many of them God was not well pleased because they did not faithfully either Drink or participate of his presence And more displeased he is with such as eat Christs Bodie and Drink his blood unworthily though they eat and drink them Sacramentally For eating and drinking so onely that is without faith or due respect they eat and drink to their own Condemnation because they do not Discern or rightly esteem Christs Bodie or presence in the H. Sacrament May we say then that Christ is Really present in the Sacrament as well to the unworthy as to the faithful receivers Yes this we must grant yet must we add withal that he is really present with them in a quite contrary manner really present he is because virtually present to both because the operation or efficacie of his Bodie and blood is not metaphorical but real in both Thus the bodily Sun though locally distant for its substance is really present by its heat and light as well to sore eyes as to clear sights but really present to both by a contrarie real operation and by the like contrary operation it is really present to clay and to wax it really hardneth the one and really softeneth the other So doth Christs Bodie and Blood by its invisible but real influence mollifie the hearts of such as come to the Sacrament with due preparation but harden such as unworthily receive the consecrated Elements If he that will hear the word must take heed how he hears much more must he which means to receive the Sacrament of Christs bodie and blood be careful how he receives He that will present himself at this great Marriage Feast of the Lamb without a wedding garment had better be absent It was alwayes safer not to approach the presence of God manifested or exhibited in extraordinarie manner as in his Sanctuarie or in the Ark then to make appearance before it in an unhallowed manner or without due preparation Now when we say that Christ is really present in the Sacrament our meaning is that as God he is present in an extraordinarie manner after such a manner as he was present before his incarnation in his Sanctuarie in the Ark of his Covenant and by the Power of his God-head thus extraordinarilie present he diffuseth the vertue or operation of his Humane Nature either to the vivification or hardning of their hearts who receive the Sacramental Pledges So then a man by eating Christs bodie meerly Sacramentally may be hardned may be excluded from his gracious presence But no man hath Christ dwelling in him by this manner of eating his flesh and drinking his blood unlesse withal he eate the one and drink the other Spiritually The Eating then of Christs bodie and drinking his blood meerly Sacramentally is not the eating and drinking here meant 6. They are said to eat Christs Flesh and drink his Blood Spiritually which rightly apprehend his Death and Passion which by Faith meditate and ruminate upon them making application to themselves aswel of the great danger which may ensue upon the neglect of such great benefits as he hath purchased for them as of the inestimable good which alwayes accompanies the right esteeme or contemplation of his Bodie which was given for them and of his Blood which was shed for them He which thus eateth Christs Flesh and drinketh his Blood by Faith although he do not for the time present eat his Bodie or drink his blood Sacramentally hath a true interest in this promise He that eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood dwelleth in me and I in him so he do not neglect to eat his Bodie and drink his Blood Sacramentally when occasion requires and opportunitie serves So that Spiritual eating and drinking Christ by Faith is the true preparative for the worthy receiving of his bodie and blood Sacramentally He that doth not so prepare himself for the receiving of his body and blood doth receive him unworthily whilest he receives him Sacramentally The main Question is Whether Christs words be to be understood at all of Sacramental eating and drinking or of Spiritual eating and drinking onely 7. Many there were and yet are in Reformed Churches which deny this place to be meant of Sacramental Eating But as Beza amongst others well observes they which deny this place to be meant at all of Sacramental eating err no lesse then they do which restrain it only to Sacramental eating Their error which deny it to be meant at all of Sacramental eating is so much the worse because it gave advantage to our Adversaries of the Romish Church which want no wit to work upon all advantages given To omit others Jansenius and Dr. Hessels two of the most exquisite expositors of Scriptures and most Judicious Divines which the Romish Church had after the Reformation was begun by Luther and Zuinglius and prosecuted by Calvin expressely deny our Saviours dispute in this Chapter with the Jews to be meant at all of Sacramental eating or drinking The Reason which enforced these two great Divines to slight the authoritie of most writers in their own Church and to wave the authoritie of most ancient Fathers which it is evident do understand this
give is his flesh that his flesh is meat indeed that his blood is drink indeed Now if the sacramental bread in S t Matthew cannot literally be said to be his body unlesse it be converted into the substance of his body then cannot Christ himselfe literally be said to be bread unlesse his substance be converted into the substance of bread His flesh cannot literaly be said meat indeed unlesse it be really and substantially converted into meat his blood cannot be said drink indeed unlesse it be really transubstantiated into drink If they grant these words to be meant of Sacramental eating or to be equivalent to the words of the Institution Now to deny these words to be meant of sacramentall eating is every way lesse expedient for reformed Churches than for the Romish And yet to restrayn them either to Sacramental eating onely or to Spirituall eating excluding sacramental is worst of all We are therefore to consider that sacramental eating and spiritual eating are not opposite or incompatible but subordinate Our eating of Christs body and drinking of Christs blood are then compleat when they are Sacramentally spiritual or spiritually sacramentall For as Calvin excellently observes albeit such as professe themselves zealous followers of him either do not understand him or do not second him to eat Christs body and drink Christs blood Sacramentally is more then to beleive in Christ more than to have our faith awaked or quickned by the sacramentall pledges For no man can spiritually eat Christ but by beleeving his death and passion yet sacramental eating addes some what to spiritual eating how quick and lively soever our faith be whilest wee eat him onely spiritually For though our faith were in both the same as well for degree as qualitie yet the object of our faith is not altogether the same at least the Union of our faith unto the same object is not altogether the same in sacramental and in spiritual eating Christs body and blood are so present in the Sacrament that wee receive a more speciall influence from them in use of the sacrament than without it wee do so we receive it worthily or with hearts prepared by spiritual eating precedent that is by serious meditation of Christs death and passion It is not all one either not to think on Christs death and passion out of the sacrament or to think on them negligently or not reverently and to receive the sacrament of his body and blood unworthily negligently or irreverently Now as the effects or consequence of the unworthy Receiving the Holy Sacrament is more Dangerous then the Effects or Consequence of not eating Christ Spiritually or of Careless Meditation upon Christs death and passion so the Effect of Sacramental Receiving worthily and faithfully performed is a Greater refreshing to the Soul then the effect of Receiving Him Spiritually onely though reverently and as becomes us Now unto the reverent and worthy Receiving of Christs Bodie and Blood both ways that is both Spiritually and Sacramentally as being the most complete performance of the Condition required is the Promise of our Saviour most immediatly annexed He that So eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood Dwelleth in Mee and I in Him The meaning of which Promise was the Second Point proposed paragraph the 5 th and should be next handled but that the Application here desireth to be inserted 11. What hath been spelled apart let us now put together He that intends aright to eat Christs flesh and drink his Blood Sacramentally to his Souls Health must come prepared by a right and worthy receiving of Both Spiritually Now we Spiritually eat Christs Flesh and drink his Blood as often as we reverently and faithfully meditate upon Christs Death and remember it aright And this we do when we take a true Estimate of ourselves and of his death and sufferings for us For this is both duely to examine our selves or our own soules and rightly to Esteem or Discern the Lord's Bodie To Discern his Bodie from the bodies of other men we cannot unlesse we believe and acknowledge it to be The Bodie of the Son of God The bodie of God Blessed for ever as was shewed at large before in other Tracts and in the fore-part of this Book And this we may do and yet not rightly esteem that Love which Christ shewed unto us in offering his Bodie and Blood in respect of the love of others which would perhaps adventure their Bodies and shed their blood for us 12. To remember a A Good turn done by a friend and not to value and prize it as we ought is rather to forget then to remember his Friendlinesse Now no man can rightly prize the Death of Christ and the benefits thereof unlesse he truely believe that Christ Dyed for him But is Every one bound to believe This Yes He that doth not believe This doth not believe that Christ is The Messias or the Redeemer of the World To doubt of This is a degree of Infidelitie to denie it is more then Heresie a point of Jewish Infidelitie Yet to believe thus much and no more doth not immediately make a good Christian or worthy receiver of the Holy Sacrament What more then must every one believe That Christ dyed for him in particular certainly he must Nor doth the belief of This make him sure of his Salvation Every one must believe that Christ dyed for him in particular that he may be a worthy Receiver And Every One must worthily receive this Holy Sacrament that is worthily remember Christs death that he may make his Election sure But in what sense must Every one believe that Christ dyed for him in particular not Exclusively as if he dyed not for others as well as for him for this were to have the faith of Christ with respect of persons without charitie and contrarie to reason For if Every one must believe that Christ died for him in particular then every man must believe that Christ dyed for all men as well as for him Otherwise some men should be bound to believe an untruth But if he died for all men how is he said to die for thee and me in particular Verie well Thus. Though He dyed for all as well as for Thee or me yet did he not Die partly for thee and partly for me and partly for others but intirely for every one 13. Plato as Seneca in his 6. Book De Beneficijs Cap. 18. tells us thought himself obliged in kindnesse to one that had Transported him over a River without paying his Fare he reckoned it Positum apud Platonem officium But when he saw others partakers of the same Benefit he Disclaimed the Debt Hence Seneca draws This Aphorism It is not enough for him that will oblige me unto him to do me a good Turn unlesse he do it as to my self directly non tantùm mihi sed tanquà m mihi If upon the like considerations or to the end that they may think themselves obliged to
Error breeding doubt of Salvation charged upon its proper evident ground viz. Their making the intention of a Bishop essentially necessary to the Consecration of a Priest and the intention of a Priest so necessary that no Sacrament can be without it The Error of the Contrarii teaching a preposterous immature certainty of Salvation The right mean betwixt or cure of these extremities prescribed unto us by our Reformers of Blessed Memory contained in the Publick Acts of the Church 3700 40. Fourth Sermon on Rom. 2. 1. The third point How Jews Papists Protestants evidently condemn themselves while they judg the Idolatry of the Heathen 3709 41 Sermon on 2 Chron. 24. 22. The Lord look upon it and require it 3717 42. Sermon on Saint Matth. 23. v. 34 35 36. c. Wherefore behold I send unto you Prophets and Wise men That upon you may come or by which means will come upon you all the righteous blood shed c. 43. Second Sermon on this Text. 44. On 2 Kings 23. v. 26 27. Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath c. 45. On S. Matth. 23. v. 37. O Jerusalem Jerusalem c. 46. Heb. 4. v. 12 13. The Word of God is quick and powerful c. A Table of the TEXTS of Holy Scripture Expounded or Illustrated in this BOOK  Genesis  3 3 4 5 3482  8 10 3404 4 10 3731 15 1 3382 18 22 23 25 3391 48 13 14 17 3308  Exodus  3 6 3456 4 11 3458 15 24 3329 16 2 3329  12 3330  43 48 49 50 c. ibid 17 3 3329 19 4 3773  16 17 18 3406 21 17 3335 3336 24 4 5 9. 3356 25 40 3310 30 11 12 15 3621 33 20 23 24 3404  Numbers  16 46 3758  Leviticus  17 13 3722 3732 19 9 3943  17 3631 23 22 3643  27 3649 25 3 3643 26 14 15. c. 3741  38 3750 3758  40 41 3755  44 45 3757  Deuteronomie  4 5 6 7 8 3373 5 29 3761 3768 8 11 3643 18 18 3748 24 19 3643 21 1 2 c. 3742  20 21 3480 29 19 3659  29 3771 32 15 3643  41 42 3412  43 3365  Judges  9 9 3348 13 22 23. 3404  1 Samuel  8 7 8. 3736  2 Samuel  2 11 3656  1 Kings  2 19 3308 14 25 3759 15 3 3759 20 35 40 3680 21  3668  2 Kings  12 2 4 3717 15 35 3760 17  3763 21 3 16 3761 22 18 19 c. 3668 et 3763 23 30 3670  2 Chronicles  6  3757 20 23 3759 23  3754 21 10 14 3760 22 1 3760 24 17 22 3753  v. 20. 3736. v. 22. 3748 3717 c. v. 17. 3686 v. 22. 3725. v. 17 18. 3718 25 14 23 27 3760 3761 26  27 6 28 22 23 32 25 26 32 24. 3633. v. 25 26. 3670 33 21 3762 34 33 35 21 c. 3670. v. 22. 3764 36 15 16 17. 3753  Ezra  9  3758  Ne ' emiah  9  3758 13 17 18 3685  Job  1 6. 3313. v. 21. 3368 19 25 3421 26 14 3377 38 6 3351  Psalms  2 2 4 8 9 c. 3363 c. 3 6 3389 9 4 6 7 3409 16 3630. v. 8 11. 3308 23 4 3389 27 1 32 1 3421 35 13 3627 37 4 3508 45 9. 3308. v. 6 7. 3312 3365 3367 46 1 3389 50 1 2 3 6 3392 57 5 11 3363  8 3364 71 3 3344 74 10 3736 78 18 3330  34 3758  38 3637 82 1 2 8 3394 89 3 4 35 36 3312  29 c. 3756 93 1 2 3392 94 1 2 3 4 3392 96 10 13 3409 97 1 6 7. 3364. 3365 v. 7. 3312 98 8 9 3409 99  3365 102  3365  19 3310. v. 25 26. 3312 103 15 3501 104 3 3402 106 6 7 3758 108 1 2 3 4 5 9 3364 109 6 7 3308 110  3363  1 3312 3315 3395 112 6 3515 114 4 3407 118 22 3350 132 11 3312 145  3365  Proverbs  1 21 c. 3780 3 9 3639 10 1 3373 11 1 3625 20 22 3610 22  3610  16 3596 28 1 3389. v. 13. 3341  Ecclesiastes  11 5 3548 12 1 3636  Isaiah  2 4 3400. v. 11. 3408 5 1 3752. v. 3 4. 3774 8 14 3346 9 19 20 3540 22 12 3628 26 1 4 3351 27 11 3777 28 16 3346 3369 30 33 3496 34 4 3408 40 6 8 3787 43 24 25 3687 45 22 23 3392 49 16 3355 53  3365 56 4 3770 57 21 3536 58 5 6 7 3496 64 1 2 3. 3409. v. 4. 3539 65 2 3 4. 3773. v. 5. 12. 3780  Jeremiah  3 3 3481 5 3 16 8  9 1 3653 23 7 8 3371 26 3731. v. 23. 3765 31 34 3399 36 6 7 3673. v. 23. 3649 45 2 3 4 5. 3648. v. 5. 3663   3672 4. Lamen 10 3667  Ezekiel  14 14 3763. v. 20. 21. 3670 18 1 2 3 c. 3738. v 4 14 15. 3758. v. 31 32. 3740 21 10 3628 24 6 3732 33 11 3771 37 4 3421  Daniel  2 44 45. 3398. v. 34. 3351 7 9 3375 3409 3410  13 3395 3397 3401 9 3758. v. 8 9 3575  Hosea  13 14 3456  Joel  2 30 31 3405. v. 32 3369 3 15 16 3405  Amos.  6 1 3627  Zephany  1 8 9 3762 2 3 3668 3 1 2 3 4 3762  Haggai  2 6 3407  Zachary  14 3 4 3403  Malachy  1 6 3637 3 2 3. 3400 3420. v. 6. 3637  9 13. 3638. v. 16. 3639 4 2 3371  Libr. Apocr   Ecclesiasticus  4 17 3487 11 27 3644 22 3 3373 34 1 2 3 3386 31 8 3644 41 1 3491  Wisdome  5 1 3389 17 11 3388  1 Maccabees  1 2 3685 6 34 3507  2 Maccabees  5 4 3406  S t Matthew  3 10 11 12 3400 4 3 3681. v. 16. 3371 5 11 12. 3560. v. 16. 3373  17 20. 3620. 3585. 3591  22 3434 7 1. 3678  12 3610 3628 3640  21 22 23 24. 3370 3592 8 31 3345 10 12 3539. v. 28. 3389 12 20 3467. v. 45. 3345 13 58 3778. v. 3. 3681 15 4 3336 16 16 19 3364  27 28. 3399 3405  18 3355 17 2 5 3400 3402 v. 6. 3405 18 23 3633 19 28 3410 20 21 3308. v. 23. 3582  24 3583 21 3752. v. 42 44. 3351 22 8 3564. v. 29. 3423 3448  31 32 3426 v. 37. 3629  45 3364 23 8 9 10. 3371. v. 29. 3684  3722. v. 32. 3723  34 35 36 37. 3725 3674 3768 24 27 29 30 3405 25 33 3308. v 34
place of Sacramental eating and drinking was because they saw no possibilitie how to maintain the peremptorie decrees of the Councels of Constance and Basil concerning Communion under one kind if the words of our Saviour ver 53. of this Chapter be to be understood of Sacramental eating and drinking For it is granted by all that the Consecrated bread is Sacramentally his Bodie not his Blood and that the Cup is Sacramentally his Blood not his Bodie And yet our Saviours words are express Except ye eate the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you So that all which hope to have life must Sacramentally drink his blood aswel as eat his flesh if this place be meant of Sacramental eating That evasion which most oâ—â— modern Priests and Jesuites use for eluding rather then answering this Objection was too palpable in the Judgement of these two great Divines as it since hath seemed to others of that Church which yet maintain that the former words of our Saviour are to be understood of Sacramental eating Christs flesh and drinking Christs blood The evasion of modern Priests and Jesuits is that he which Sacramentally receives Christs Bodie under the shape or form of Sacramental bread doth with it receive his blood per Concomitantiam by way of concomitancie because there is blood conteined in his bodie which they thus receive But this cannot satisfie any Romish Divine which understands himself or the ancient Doctrine which that Church pretends to follow For this device of receiving Christs blood in the bread per concomitantiam was but a late invention little above 200. years before Jansenius or Hessels lived And the newnesse of this imagination or invention which was generally applauded in the Romish Church in his time was one special motive why that Reverend Pastor of Blessed memorie Mr. Gilpin did disclaim the Romish Churches Doctrine in the Point of Transubstantiation as Bishop Tunstall his Uncle before him had done Secondly Admitting the bread were turned into Christs very bodie and after this conversion had blood in it as truly as flesh and bones yet all this would not salve the literal sense of our Saviours words in the 53 d verse if the eating and drinking which he there speaks of were Sacramental For suppose a man should feed upon raw flesh or upon flesh which had visible or material blood in it we might say indeed that he did eat blood per concomitantiam by way of concomitancie because the flesh which he eats had blood in it But no man would say That he did drink blood per concomitantiam For eating and drinking are two distinct acts and incompatible at one and the same time He that eateth flesh with blood in it doth not eat the flesh and drink the blood whilest he only eats but eats both together the one as principal the other as an appurtenance if he eat as a man and not as Swine do draugh which is no more an eating then a drinking Or if a man should drink blood mingled with some small portions of flesh we might say He did drink flesh by way of Concomitancie but no man would say that he did eat blood per concomitantiam albeit there were flesh in the blood which he drinks for he drinks both together he doth not eat either And for these reasons Pope Innocent expressely denies that he which eats Christs bodie whilst he only eats it doth drink his blood In his fourth Book Myster Evangel Legis ac Sacramenti Eucharist Chap. 21. Edit Venet. in quarto 8. The only refuge which the most learned in the Romish Church since Jansenius and Hessels dyed have found out for answering the former Objection of Reformed Writers is That the words of our Saviour Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man And drink his blood ye have no life in you are to be Expounded disjunctively as thus Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man Or drink his blood ye have no life in you The use or Corollarie of this Exposition is That if Christian people do Sacramentally Either eat Christs flesh Or drink his Blood as they ought that is with due preparation this will suffice seeing as they pretend there is no Divine precept which enjoynes all Christian People Sacramentally to receive Christs bodie and blood under both kindes Nor all Priests but only such as do Officiate or Consecrate The precept of Institution Bibite ex hoc omnes Drink ye all of this was punctually directed as they alledg to our Saviours Apostles only who were at this time made Priests and authorized to minister Christs bodie and blood after his death Yet were they not by their leave at this time Sacerdotes conficientes Our Saviour Christ himself did Consecrate both the Bread and Wine the Apostles were as much inferior to him as the meanest Lay-people are to the greatest Priest in the Romish Church to the Pope or summus Pontifex himself But the further Discussion of this Point belongs more properly to the words of the Institution The other Point of expounding et by vel or of shuffling in Or for And belongs to the Cognizance of the 53 and 56. verses To justifie this exposition Cardinal Tollet would perswade us That St Johns Greek Text is full of Hebraismes and there is nothing more familiar with Moses or with other sacred Hebrew writers then to use And for Or Et for Vel. And he brings divers instances to this purpose As for example that in Exod. 21. 17. He that curseth father And mother shall surely be put to death So it is word for word in the Hebrew and yet our English Translation as well as the Vulgar Latin renders the Original thus He that curseth father Or mother shall surely be put to death And it would be an ungodly Evasion for any Magistrate not to censure him as a transgressour of this Law which curseth his father albeit he do not curse his mother or which curseth his mother albeit he do not curse but rather blesse his father But must the true interpretation of such as are to judge according to this Law be derived from the peculiar phrase or dialect of the Hebrews No this was Cardinal Tollet's Errour for the Rule of Interpretation so the matter or circumstance be the same would hold as true in any dialect or language whatsoever The Question then is What certain general Rule we have when or in what cases the conjunctive particle And doth produce this or the like disjunctive sense or may warrant this or the like Exposition of this Law He that curseth father And mother shall surely die that is he which curseth Either father Or mother shall surely die For the like Exposition the Rules are Two One General and infallible Rule is this Whensoever the particle And doth couple not two parts of one and the same proposition but two intire propositions together That which is thus conjunctively affirmed of
not have appear'd so great in the creation of Earth and Water as it doth in the creation not of them only but of the whole heavens with all their Hosts and furniture The more Gods creatures be the greater be his praises for this Tribute he ought to receive from all of them for their verie Being In like manner though the Redemption of one or some few men do truly argue the value of his sufferings to be truly infinite yet the more they be for whom he dyed the more is his glorie the greater is his praise For all are bound joyntly and severally to laud and magnifie his Name for the infinite price of their Redemption 15. Lastly This Doctrine is so necessarie for manifesting the just measure of their unthankfulnesse which perish that without This we cannot take so much as a true Surface of it not so much as the least Dimension of Sin Some there be which tell us that we had power in Adam to Glorifie God but that finning in Adam our sin is infinite because against an infinite Majestie For so it is that the greater the Partie is whom we offend the greater always the offence is And thus by degrees they gather that everie sin against the infinite Majestie of God deserveth infinitie of Punishment But albeit the degrees of Sin which accrue from the degrees of Dignitie in the person whom we offend be successively infinite yet because these Degrees are indeterminate every man which hath any skill at all in Arguments of Proportion must needs know that it is impossible for the wit or art of man to find out the true Product of such Calculatorie Inductions or to conjecture unto what set measure of ingratitude these infinite degrees will amount It is not the ten-hundreth-thousandth part of any Sin that can be truly notifyed unto us by inferences of this kind How then shall we take the true measure of our Sinnes or the full Dimension of our unthankfulnesse From the Great Goodnesse of God in our Creation and the unmeasurable Love of Christ in our Redemption If God in our Creation as the Psalmist saies did make us but litle lower then the Glorious Angels that the might afterward crown us with Glorie everlasting if when through the First mans follie we had lost that Honour he made his Onely Son for a litle while for 33. yeares space lower then the Angels that he might exalt Him above all Principalitie and Power and in Him recrown us with Honour and Glorie aequal to the Angels Their Sin is truly infinite their unthankfulnesse is unexpressible and justly deserveth punishment everlasting who voluntarily and continually despise so great Salvation which by Christ was purchased for them No Torment can be too great no anguish too Durable because no Happiness could be in any degree comparable much lesse equal to that which they refused though treasured up for them in that inexhaustible fountain of happinesse Christ Jesus our Lord our God and our Redeemer To conclude this meditation It is a thing most seriously to be considered That though Gods mercies in Christ can never be magnified too much yet may they be apprehended amisse And that as it is most Dangerous to sink in Deep waters wherein it is the easiest to Swim so the more infinite Gods mercies towards us are the more deadly sin it is to Dallie with them or to take incouragement by the Contemplation of them to continue in Sin The contemplation of their infinitie is then most seasonable when we are touched with a feeling of the infinitenesse of our sins In that case we can not look upon them but we shall be desirous to be partakers of them and that upon such Termes as God offers them the forsaking of all our sinnes Pro. 28. 13. 16. But is this all that thou art to remember when thou art by Spirituall eating and drinking Christs flesh and blood a preparing thy self for Sacramental and Spiritual receiving him together in The Lords Supper is it enough to acknowledge that he payd as great a Ransom for thee as he did for all Mankind in general No! This is but the first part of thy Redemption and this first part of thy redemption was intirely and alsufficiently and most effectually wrought for thee before any part of thy bodie was framed before thy Soul was created it was then wrought for thee without any endeavour or wish of thine No more was required at thy hands for this work then was required of thee for thy creation But there is A second part of thy Redemption of which that saying of A Father is true Qui fecit te sine te non salvabit te sine te He that made thee without any work or endeavour of thine will not save wil not Redeem thee without some endeavour at least on thy part What then is the second part of the Redemption which wee expect that Christ should yet work in us and for us or what is the endeavour on our parts required that he should work it in us and for us The second part of our Redemption which is yet in most of us to be accomplished is The Mortification of our Bodies the diminishing the Reign of sin in them in a word our Sanctification or Ratification of our Election These are wholly Christ's workes the sole works of God for it is He that works in us both the will and the Deed and yet are we commanded to work out our own Salvation to make our Election sure But how shall we do this which is wholly Gods work or what are we to do that these works may be wrought in us Besides the renewing of the Astipulation or answer of a Pure Conscience and Resumption of our BAPTISMAL VOW heretofore mentioned we are to humble our selves mightily before the Lord by a meek acknowledgement of our vilenesse and sincere confession of our sinnes And if we so humble our selves Hee that giveth Grace to the humble will lift us up if we confesse our sinnes he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sinnes and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse not only to remit and cover our iniquities but to purifie our hearts and renew our spirits and mindes that they shall bring forth fruits unto holinesse We are to call upon God by the prayer of faith and perseverance Turn thou us Good Lord and so shall we be turned Speak but Thou the word and Thy Servants shall be whole 17. Thus we may esteem of Christs love to us and yet not examin or judge our selves as wee ought before we eat This Bread and Drink this Cup. To examin and judge our selves aright requires these Two meditations or Two parts of one and the same meditation First How farre wee are guilty of Christ's Death by our Sinnes But this falles under the former Meditation That Christ Dyed for us all not onely all joyntly considered but for everie one in particular or as alone considered and if
exposition of Scriptures doth It requires a greater skill then the skill of Alchymie to extract the true sense and meaning of the holy Ghost from the plausible glosses or expositions which are dayly made upon them But how sincerely soever the word may be delivered by the Pastor it may be corrupted by the hearer Milk as Physicians tell us is turned into purer blood with greater facilitie than any other nutriment so the body which receives it be free from humors but if the stomack or other vitall parts be stuft with Phlegm opprest with Choler or other corruption there is no nutriment which is more easily corrupted or more apt to feed bad humors than milk how pure soever it be Thus though the sincere milk of the word be not only the best but the onely nutriment of soules by which wee must grow up in faith yet if the heart which receives it from the preachers mouth sincere be pestered with corrupt affections it doth not nourish if it do not purge or purifie the corrupt humours but mingle with them they malignifie one another The speciall humours which on the hearers part corrupt the sincere milk of the word and of which every one that will be a diligent hearer must endeavour to purge his soule by repentance are set downe by S. Peter in the same Chapter vers 1. Wherefore laying aside all malice all guile and all hypocrisie and envies and evill-speakings as new born babes desire the sincere milk of the word Wee must first then desire the word as Physick to purge our soules That part of the word I mean which teacheth Repentance and denyall of all ungodliness before wee can hope to grow by the milk of it that is by the comfort of Gods promises Unlesse our hearts be in good measure purified by obedience to the Generall precepts or morall duties how sincere soever the milk of the word preached be our desire of it cannot be sincere wee shall desire it or delight in it to maintain Faction or secret pride not to grow up thereby in sinceritie of mind and humblenesse of spirit which are the most proper effects of the milk of the word sincerely delivered and sincerely received SECT II. Of Christs Lordship or Dominion Phil. 2. 11. That every Tongue should Confesse that Jesus Christ is LORD to the Glorie of God the Father Acts 2. 36. Let all the House of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye Crucified both Lord and Christ Rev. 5. 13. Every Creature in heaven and earth and sea did say Blessing Honour Glorie and Power to Him that sitteth on the Throne and to The Lamb for ever ever The Degrees or Steps by which we must ascend before we enter this Beautiful Gate of the Lords House are Three First What it is to be a LORD Second Upon what Grounds or in what respects Christ is by peculiar Title called THE LORD Third How our Confession or acknowledgment of Christ to be The Lord doth redound to the Glorie of God the Father CHAP. VI. What it is to be a Lord. Though there be many called Lords yet is there but One Absolute Lord. 1. THe Title of Lord whether we take it in the Greek in the Latin or in our English is sometimes a Title only of Respect or courtesie So strangers usually salute men of place or note by the name of Dominus or sometimes of Domination it self And we usually instile the Eldest Sons of Earles by the title of Lords And all the Sons of Dukes even from their Cradles are so instiled Not to vouchsafe them this Title when we mention them were ill manners or discourtesie Howbeit even they which are bound to love them best the very parents of their bodies do not permit them to enjoy the Realities answering to these honourable Titles before their full age and for the most part till they themselves have surrendred them by death The Realitie answering to this title of Lord is Dominion Every one that hath Dominion is a Lord in respect of that over which he hath Dominion and whosoever really is a Lord is so instiled from some Dominion which he exerciseth Dominus in Latin sometimes goes for no more then our English word Owner and this is the lowest or meanest signification of the word Lord. The full Extent or highest value of the word Dominus or Lord must be gathered from the several degrees or scale of Dominion as either from the Extent of the matter or subject over which Dominion is exercised or from the Soveraigntie of Title Dominion as Lawyers define it is A Facultie or power fully to dispose of any corporal or bodily substance so far as they are not restrained by law And by how much a mans power to dispose of what he hath is lesse restrained by law by so much his Dominion over it is the greater and he in respect of it is if not so much a greater Lord yet so much more properly a Lord. But fitting it is in regard of publick good or of posteritie that most mens power to dispose of that which otherwise by full right is their own should be in certain Cases restrained Many are Lords of great Lands and may dispose of their annual profits as they please but yet cannot sell or alienate their perpetual inheritance Others have a more full power to dispose of the houses wherein they dwell a power not only to let or set them for yeers but to sell or give away the perpetual inheritance who yet are by Law restrained utterly to demolish or set them on fire especially if they be inclosed by neighbour Lodgings The Cases are many wherein Dominuim sub altiore dominio est There is a sub ordination of Lordships or Dominions some are Mean Lords some are Chief Lords Even meaner Lords or owners are not to be denyed the titles of Lords albeit they cannot alienate the soil whereof they are owners without licence of the Chief Lord much more are chief or higher Lords to be so reputed because their Dominion or power to dispose of their own Lands is lesse subordinate howbeit in some cases limited by the Rule of Law And this restraint in how few cases soever it be hinders their greatnesse from growing into absolute Dominion Lords they are but not absolute Lords This is a Title peculiar to Kings or Monarches who are so called only in respect of their own subjects or of their own Lands No meere mortal man since Adam was Lord of the whole earth or bare soveraigntie over all men or bodily substances And the greatest of men have been subject or inferiour to Angels 2. To leave other divisions of Dominion to Lawyers All Dominion is either Jurisdictionis or Proprietatis A power of Jurisdiction or a right to the Propertie The former branch of Dominion is exercised only over men or resonable creatures which only are capable of Jurisdiction passive or of Government The later branch which we call
more probable it is that our Apostle did aim at the 97. Psal then at the forecited place of Deut. because the other Testimonies following in that Hebr. 1. 8 9. are evidently taken out of the Book of Psalmes unto the SON he saith O GOD Thy throne is for ever and ever the Scepter of thy Kingdome is a Scepter of righteousness Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquitie wherefore God even thy God hath anointed thee with the oyle of gladness above thy fellowes This Testimonie is evident in the 45. Psal v. 6 7. So is that other Heb. 1. 10 11 12. expressely contained in Psal 102 Thou Lord in the beginning hast established the earth and the heavens are the workes of thine hands They shall perish but thou dost remain and they all shall wax old as doth a garment And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up and they shall be changed But thou art the same and thy yeares shall not fail The former testimonie is perhaps Typically Propheticall and may in some sort concern Salomon according to the literal sense but Salomon only as he was a Type of that Son of David who was likewise to be the Son of God But the Character almost of every line in the hundred and second Psalm testifies that the Psalmist in this grievous complaint had more then a Typical representation such a distinct and clear vision of Christs Glorie and Exaltation as the Prophet Esay Chap. 53. had of his humiliation in our flesh or humane nature The Title of this Psalm is A prayer of the afflicted when he shall be in distress and powr forth his meditations before the Lord. And The only fountain of comfort to all afflicted in bodie or soul is the Exaltation of Christ the Son of God in our flesh or nature That which must sweeten all our bodily sorrowes or afflictions even the bitterness of death it self whereof this Psalmist and the people of God in his time had tasted must be our meditation upon that and the like speeches of our Apostle If we suffer with Christ we shall also reign with him And for your comfort in all distress I cannot commend any fitter matter of meditation to you then is contained in this 102 Psalm and in the 2. 4. and 12. Chapters to the Hebrews This Exaltation of Christ to be Lord is alike clearly fore-prophesied Psalm 99. and Psalm 145. as every observant Reader may of himself collect 4. The more extraordinary and more special Grounds or Bases whereupon this Title of Lord as it is peculiar to Christ is erected are these First Christ is in peculiar sort called The LORD because it was God the Son not God the Father or God the Holie Ghost who did personally pay the ransom of our Sins and this he fully payed by offering up part of our nature made his own in a bloody Sacrifice to the Father Servants we were by creation of our nature not onely to God the Son but to God the Father and to God the Holie Ghost to the Divine nature or blessed Trinity But we had sold our selves for enjoying the pleasures of the flesh unto Gods adversary And albeit we could not by any compact or Covenant whether implicit or express made with Satan by our first Parents or by our selves alienate our selves from Gods Dominion of Jurisdiction over us yet we did renounce his Service and that Interest which we had in his gracious protection as he was our Lord and alienate unto his enemy that property or disposal of our imployments which by right of creation intirely belong'd to God God after our first Parents Fall was no otherwise our Lord then any King is Lord over Rebels Traytors Murtherers or of others who by their misdemeanors may alienate their allegeance from him and exempt themselves from his gracious protection but not from his power or Dominion of Jurisdiction for he is the minister of God for executing vengeance upon such Our first Parents had declared themselves to be Traytors and we had continued a race of Rebels against our God and Creator without all hope of being restored unto Gods favor and service unless satisfaction were made for our transgression and means purchased for establishing us in a better estate then the estate of Servants which we had by the gift of Creation Now not onely our redemption from the estate of Slaverie unto Satan but all the means for our further advancement after our ransom was paid were purchased by the Son of God And that which most advanceth the peculiar Title of Christs Dominion and Lordship over us was the price which he gave for us For we were not redeemed with corruptible things as with silver and gold though men with these and things more corruptible then these do purchase the real title of Lords and exercise the dominion of Lords over Lands or Servants so purchased but we were redeemed by the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb undefiled and without spot 1 Pet. 1. 18 19. Blood is the most precious and dearest part of mans bodie and greater love we cannot testifie unto our dearest friends then by spending our blood for them Losses we value none so deeply as forgetfulness ungrateful neglects or contempt from them for whose sakes and credit we have been content specially out of sinceritie of love and sober resolution to shed our blood Never was any blood either so copiously shed or out of the like sinceritie of love or sobriety of resolution as Christs blood was shed for all and every one of us This blood did immediatly issue from his Man-hood whereof it was a true and lively part yet was it the blood not of Man onely but of God whence if we consider either our own miserable estate being then the enemies of God or his dignitie that made Attonement for us What real portion branch or degree of service can we imagin answerable to this Soveraign Title of Lord which Christ hath not more then fully purchased over all that are partakers of flesh and blood 5. Yet Besides this Ground or Title of Christs peculiar Lordship or dominion over us there is another more forcible to command our most chearful service unless our hope be quite dead or the affection of love utterly extinguished in us For Christ by his precious blood did not onely purchase our Freedom from the Slavery of Satan but being set free doth by the everlasting efficacie of this blood once shed both wash and nourish us not as his Servants but as the Sons of his and our heavenly Father Sin and slaverie was the Terminus a quo the condition or state from which he redeemed us but the end of our redemption from these was to invest us in the libertie of the Sons of God The height of all our hopes in the life to come is to be Kings and Priests as he is but in the mean time we are or may be live members of his Glorious Body and being such
intimate either a new manner of Gods governing the world or a beginning of his reign over all Nations or of being made Lord and King or of arising to Judge the earth must be meant of God incarnate that is of the Son of God begotten before all worlds and begotten again from the dead For as the Son of God by his death and resurrection became our Lord by a peculiar Title So he was from the ground of the same Title appointed Judge of quick and dead by a peculiar and personal right This is more often and more Emphatically intimated by our Saviour Christ and by his Apostles then observed by many of their profest Interpreters First by St. Peter Acts 10. 40 41 42. Him God raised up the third day and shewed him openly not unto all the people but unto witnesses chosen before of God even to us who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testifie that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of the quick and the dead And again by St. Paul Acts 17. 30 31. And the times of this ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent because he hath appointed a day in the which he will Judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead But more fully by the same St. Paul Rom. 14. 9. To this end Christ both died and rose and revived that he might he Lord both of the dead and living In this Collection from the Prophet Esay he saith no more then our Saviour hath done Iohn 5. 21 22. For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them even so the Son quickeneth whom he will For the Father Iudgeth no man but hath committed all Judgment unto the Son 4. But the Former Question still revolves upon the same Center that it did before The Point or Center is This Whether St. Peter or St. Paul or whether our Saviour himself did deliver the doctrine fore-cited from that authority only which was delegated to them from God within that compass of time wherein they did converse with men here on earth or whether the doctrine which they then delivered were fully ratified by Divine Authority revealed and written before To this we Answer that our Saviour Himself in all his Answers to the Jews did but Comment upon or expound those Texts of holy Scripture which he had put into his Prophets mouthes long before he himself had spoken with the mouth of man One of the most pregnant Texts of the Old Testament is Psal 82. 1 2. God standeth in the congregation of the mighty he judgeth among the Gods How long will ye Judge unjustly and accept the persons of the wicked I have said ye are Gods and all of you are children of the most High but ye shall die like men and fall like one of the Princes that is like any Princes amongst the Heathen And dying and falling thus they could not expect that they were to rise again to Judge others but rather to be Judged by God himself or by him that was the Son of the most High in another manner then they were who though he were to die as man yet did he not cease to be the Son of God by his death Yea He was declared to be The only Son of God with Power by His Resurrection from the Dead And out of this hope of his future resurrection the Psalmist for Conclusion being as it seems opprest with corruption of Judgment appeals unto the supreme Judge as well of the dead as of the living Arise O God Iudge the earth for thou shalt inherit all Nations ver 8. He doth not say Thou dost inherit all Nations or thou art already set in Judgment but arise O God to Iudge the earth for thou shalt inherit all Nations So that the ground or Title of his universal Jurisdiction or judicature is his Inheritance of all Nations and his Title of Inheritance over all Nations bears date or began to be in Esse from the day of his Resurrection as you heard before out of St Paul Rom. 14. And was before him expresly foretold by the Prophet David Psal 2. 7 8 9. I will declare the Decree the Lord hath said unto me Thou art my Son This day have I begotten thee Ask of me and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession Thou shalt break them with a rod of Iron thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potters vessel This Decree was executed this promise performed when All Power in Heaven and Earth was given unto Christ Matth. 28. 18. 5. To omit all further variety of Testimonies No other Article in our Creed is or can be so authentickly testified as This One Article of Christs coming to Judgment is Besides that it was expresly and distinctly foretold by the Prophets and the fulfilling of their prophecies expresly avouched by the Evangelists and the Apostles the Truth of it was in special manner sealed by the blood of this Great Judge himself The only matter of death which the malicious wit of his enemies could invent or pretend against him was from his voluntary Confession of this Article in the same Form or Terms wherein we profess our Belief of it For as you may read Matth. 26. 59. After the High-Priest and Elders had found that the Witnesses suborned against him did not agree in their testimonies or else which is more probable that their testimonies though well agreeing did not amount to any matter Capital the High-Priest seeks to intangle him in his own Answers to This Interrogatory I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us whether thou be The Christ the Son of God ver 63. Our Saviour confesseth the Article or Interrogatory For so much is answered at least in the next words Thou hast said it Nevertheless I say unto you Hereafter shall you see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of Power and coming in the Clouds of Heaven This Adversative Particle Nevertheless hath much troubled some Interpreters and some to ease themselves of further trouble would have it to be no Adversative but an Affirmative As to their apprehensions the Hebrew Ac whereof the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place is the expression in many places of the Old Testament is an Affirmative no Adversative Particle But it were easie to shew them wherein their Observations fail The difficulty of the Construction in this place may be Two wayes salved either 1. by filling up this Hiatus or chink in St. Matthew with the words of our Saviours answer which St. Luke relates Or 2. by borrowing this Adversative Particle from St. Matthew and adding it unto St. Luke's Relation Unto the former
Gideon exempt his Successors from the like or greater fear upon notice of Gods extraordinary presence For so Manoah Samsons father after long Conference with the Lord after he knew that it was an Angel of the Lord which had brought the Message to him of Samsons birth said unto his Wife Judg. 13. 22. We shall surely die because we have seen God But his Wife said unto him if the Lord were pleased to kill us he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands neither would he have shewed us all these things neither would he at this time have told us such things as these ver 23. So then Gods extraordinary presence is terrible even to his servants to flesh and blood without exception though in the issue it will prove comfortable to such as truly fear him and faithfully rely upon his promises St. Peter long after this time was a man less conscious of many grievous sins then most of us alive this day are yet not upon any sight or spectacle of Gods Extraordinary Presence but only upon an instinct or secret apprehension of his Peculiar Presence in Christ as man notified unto him by the miraculous draught of fishes which he took by his direction and command cries out Lord depart from me for I am a sinful man Luke 5. 8. And St. Paul before his conversion fell to the earth upon a suddain glimpse or representation of that glorious light wherein Christ shall appear at the last day Acts 9. 3 4. And after he had heard A Voyce saying unto him though in no extraordinary manner for terror Saul Saul why persecutest thou me He trembling and astonished at the name of Jesus said Lord what wilt thou have me to do ver 6. No marvel if St. Paul being conscious of persecution intended by him against Christs Church and having by Fact and Resolution declared himself to be Christs Enemy were thus affrighted at the Sight and Voice when as St. Peter St. James and St. John after long and peculiar familiarity with Christ and after many gracious promises made unto them of Gods special protection over them were thrown down to the earth with a more placid and comfortable Voice then that which St. Paul heard The Voice which they heard out of the cloud was this This is my well beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear ye him And when they heard it saith the text Matth. 17. 6. they fell on their faces and were sore afraid until Christ came and touched them and said arise and be not afraid This strange dejection of these three great Apostles at so mild and gentle a Voice yet a Voice uttered from the extraordinary presence of God gives us a Remarkable Document or grounded Observation of the truth of that saying of St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. 50. Now this I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God neither doth corruption inherit incorruption Christ had told these Three Matth. 16. 28. that they should see not God but the Son of man coming in his Kingdom Peter had a desire to have inherited that joy wherewith his heart was ravished at the sight of our Saviours Transfiguration which as you heard before was but a representation of his coming in glory to Judge the world and out of this desire he said Lord it is good for us to be here if thou wilt let us make here three Tabernacles one for Thee one for Moses and one for Elias Yet as soon as he heard the Voice the Antipathie between sinful flesh and the fruition of Gods presence or the inheritance of that Kingdom of Christ which was then represented begun to shew it self And what shall We do then which are conscious of more grievous sins then St. Peter S. Iames or S. John then were unto whom both the Spectacle of Christs glorious presence and the Voice or Sound which in that day shall be heard from heaven will be far more terrible then any manifestation of Gods presence whether made by Voice or Sight unto our First Parents unto Gideon unto Manoah or unto any of his Apostles recorded in Scripture 4. Let us now take a view of such representations or descriptions of the Terrible Spectacles which shall be seen and of the Terrible Voices or sounds which in that last day shall be heard as Gods Prophets or Evangelists have framed to us These representations are of Two Sorts either Charactred out unto us in meer Words or in Matters of Fact historically related To begin with the Terrible Spectacles which shall appear before the last day or at the least before the Process or Judgment begin These are most punctually exprest by the Prophet Joel Cap. 2. 30 31. And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth blood and fire and pillars of smoak the Sun shall be turned into darkness and the Moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord come And Ioel 3. 15 16. The Sun and the Moon shall be darkned and the Stars shall withdraw their shining The Lord also shall roar out of Sion utter his voice out of Jerusalem the heavens the earth shall shake The Terrors here foretold were really represented by the first desolation of Iudah and destruction of Jerusalem by the Assyrians and Chaldeans whose approach to execute Gods Judgments upon that land and people was prophesied of by this Prophet in the beginning of this Second Chapter yet so foretold by him as the plagues there threatned might by Repentance have been prevented So could not the Terrors foretold in the Second Prophecie at least the Prophet expresseth no means for averting these fearful signs in the heavens and earth This later prophecie is in particular exemplified by our Saviour Matth. 24. 27 29 30. For as the lightning cometh out of the East and shineth even unto the West So shall also the coming of the Son of man be Immediately after the tribulation of those dayes shall the Sun be darkned and the Moon shall not give her light and the Stars of heaven shall fall and the Powers of the heavens shall be shaken And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in Heaven and then shall all the Tribes of the Earth mourn and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of Heaven with power and great glory Both the Prophecie of Joel and this prediction of our Savior were in part fulfilled shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus by the burning of the Mount Vesuvius in Campania a Province of Italy the manner and effects whereof how fearful and terrible they were not to Rome onely or Italy but to a great part of Africa to Egypt to Syria and to Constantinople with the Countries adjoyning and how consonant they were unto the Prophet Joels and our Saviors Prediction may be gathered from Dion in his 66. and 68. Books and from other Roman Heathenish
it is fitting that we refer the particular manner how our bodies shall be intirely restored unto God himself We will not dispute whether the Resurrection of every man in his own body shall be wrought de facto by recollecting of the dust into which men are turned or of the same material parts which every man had when he died or whether it shall be wrought by Creation of some new matter or only by preparing some other Elementary matter prae-existent and working it into the same individual temper or constitution into which our bodily food or nutriment was wrought whilst we lived It sufficeth to have shewed that every man may arise with his own body by any of the former wayes or partly by one partly by another Lastly the Recollection of the same material fragments or reliques into which our bodies are dissolved is no more necessary by the Principles of nature or true Philosophie unto the constitution of the same bodies at the day of the Resurrection which before have been then the recollection or regresse of the same matter or nutriment whereof our blood or flesh was made or by which our life was preserved in childhood is unto the continuance or constitution of the same life flesh or blood in old age The life of every man in old age is the same the body the same the flesh the same the blood the same which it was it childhood albeit the blood or greatest part of our bodies in childhood was made of one kind of nutriment and the blood which we have in mature or old age be made of another much different nutriment Yea albeit we alter our food or diet every year yet our bodies remain still the same every finger the same whilst it continues in the body and whilst this bodily life continues For albeit the nutriment be of divers kinds yet nature or the digestive facultie works all into one temper and this temper continues the same in divers portions of the matter which is continually fluent and the same only by Equivalencie Now if nature by Gods appointment and co-operation can work divers kinds of food or nutriment into the same form or constitution it will be no improbable supposall to say that The God of nature can work any part of the Element of water of ayre or of earth any fragment or relique of Adams body into the same individual form or mould wherein the bodily life of the man that shall be last dead before Christs coming to Judgement did consist Yet will it be no hard thing for God to make Adam the self same body wherein he died out of the reliques of this mans body To work this mutual exchange between the material parts of several mens bodies without any hinderance or impeachment to the numerical Identity of any mans body or without any prejudice to this truth That every man shall arise with his own body which we Christians believe is impossible to nature or to any natural causes they can be no Agents in this work yet it is no wayes impossible for it implyeth no contradiction for nature thus to be wrought and fashioned by the Creator and preserver of mankind In avouching thus much we say no more then some I take it meer Philosophers have delivered in other Termes Quicquid potest prima causa per secundam idem potest per se sola Whatsoever the first cause doth by the instrumental Agencie or service of second causes the same he may do by his sole Power without the service of any instrumental or second cause Now God by the heart by the Liver and by the digestive facultie as by causes instrumental or secondary doth change the substance of herbs of fruits of fish of roots into the very substance of mans body without dissolving the unitie of his bodily life and therefore if it please him may change the material parts of one man into another mans body or substance without the help or instrumental service of the nutritive or digestive faculty or any other instrumental cause All this he may do immediatly by His sole Power But whether it be His Will so to do or no at the last day be it ever reserved with all reverence and submission to his infinite wisdom alone 9. One scruple more there is wherewith ingenuous minds and well affected may be sometimes touched The doubt may be framed Thus. Although it be most true and evident from the Book of nature that the natural or digestive faculty of man doth preserve the unitie of bodily life entire by diversitie of mater or nutriment yet the living body so preserved is one and the same by continuation of existence or duration His dayes whilst natural life continues are not cut off by death he doth not for a moment cease to be what he was But when we speak of Resurrection from death when we say the dead shall arise with their own bodies here is a manifest interruption of bodily life or of mans duration in bodily life His body ceaseth to be a living body as it was And therefore if he must live again in the body the body to which his soul shall be united at his Resurrection may be called his own body because it shall be inhabited or possessed with his immortal soul but how shall it be The same body which he formerly had seeing the existence or duration of him or of his soul in the body is divided by death and division destroyeth unitie This leaf or paper is one yet if we divide it in the middle it is no more one but two papers The question then comes to this short and perspicuous issue Whether the uninterrupted continuance of duration or existence or unitie of time wherewith the duration of mans life is measured be as necessary to the Unitie or Identity of his bodily Nature or Being as Unitie or Continuation of Quantitie is unto the Unitie of Bodies divisible or quantitative The determination or Judgment is easie The Book of Nature being Judge it is evident That Unitie of Time or continuation of mans life without interruption is but Accidental to the unitie of bodily nature or being It is a circumstance only no such part of the Essence or nature as continuation or unitie of quantitie is of the unitie of bodies divisible for time and quantitie are by nature divisible whereas the nature of man or other things that exist in time is indivisible It is true Division makes a pluralitie in things that are by nature divisible but not in natures indivisible Every thing that is divisible though it be unum actu yet it is plura in potentiâ In that it may be divided it is not purely simply or altogether one but may be made two or more And whilst it remains one it is one by conjunction of parts The entire substance of any natural bodie as it is divisible or subject to dimension cannot be contained under one part of quantitie but part of it is
shelter of his ey lids which his cruell enemies for increasing his pain and lingring torture had cut off Others again which wanted no contentment either of the outward or internal senses have died through meer grief and sorrow first conceived either from losse of goods or friends or for fear of disgrace and shame and some through excessive and suddain joy So that in this life it is universally true and undoubtedly experienced in all the bodily senses and most other faculties of the soul Nullum violentum est Perpetuum There is no grief no pain or sorrow whether inflicted by external Agents or whether it breeds within us or be hatched by the reflection of our own thoughts upon others wrongs or our own oversights or misdeeds but if it be violent or excessive it becomes like a raging flame which both devours the subject whereon it exerciseth its efficacie and puts an end to its own Being by destroying that fuel which fed it 7. This then is the propertie of the second death and the miserable condition of such as must receive the wages of sin That after the Resurrection of the body the capacitie aswell of the bodily senses as of other faculties are so far improved so far inlarged that no extremity of any external Agent no virulency of any disease which breeds within them no strength of imagination or Reflection upon what they have in time past foolishly done or what they suffer for the present or may justly fear hereafter can either dissolve or weaken their passive capacities or strength to indure the like Every facultie becomes more durable then an Anvil to receive all the blows that can be fastned upon them and all the impressions how violent soever which in this life would in an instant dissolve or dead them So that the second death as is said before is a life or vivacitie continually to sustain deadly pains The Dimensions of this death may be deduced to these three heads First to the intensiveness of the pain or grief which is more extream then any man in this life can suffer because the capacities of every sense or passive facultie are in a manner infinitely inlarged and so is the strength or violence of external Agents and the sting of conscience or perplexed thoughts wonderfully increased Secondly to the duration of all those punishments for it is a death everlasting Lastly to the uncessant perpetuitie of these everlasting pains for they are not inflicted by fits but without all intermission though but for a moment There is not an ill day and a good not an ill hour and a good not an ill minute and a good not an ill moment and a good in hell All times are extreamly evil varietie of torments breed no ease Thus much appeared by the Parable of the rich glutton who could not obtain so much of Abraham as a drop of water to cool his tongue which if it had been granted could not have effected any intermission or intercision of pain nor any abatement for the present which would not have inraged the flame as much in the next moment So that such as suffer the second death know not how to ask any thing for their good because indeed nothing can do them any good but all things even their own wishes conspire unto their harme and increase their wo and miserie 8. Some taking occasion from this Parable have moved a question not much necessarie whether the fire of hell be material fire or no that is such as may palpably or visibly scorch the body and torment the outward senses Sometimes this fire is described by a flame as in the Parable of the rich glutton sometimes by the blackness of darkness as in Saint Jude It is not the flame or visibilitie of this fire which argues it to be material the flame is least material in our fire And palpable it may be though not visible But with this question I will not meddle being impossible to be determined without sight or experience which God grant we never have It shall suffice therefore in brief to shew how this fire or rather the pains of the second death are decyphered or displayed in Scripture Now As the joyes of Heaven are set forth unto us under such Emblemes or representations as are visible or known unto us and yet we do not beleive that they are formally or properly such as these shadows or pictures represent but rather eminently contain the greatest joyes that by these representations we can conceive or imagine So we are bound to beleive That the pains of Hell are at least either properly and formally such as the Scripture describes them to be or more extream and violent then if they were such as the characters which the holy Ghost hath put upon them do without Metaphor import or signifie More extream they are then flesh and blood in this life could endure for a minute For as flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven so neither can they endure or inherit the kingdom of Satan there must be a change of this corruptible nature before it be capable of these everlasting pains So much the description of it in holy Scripture doth import The first and that a Terrible description of it is Esai 30. 33. Tophet is ordained of old yea for the King it is prepared the pile thereof is fire and much 〈◊〉 the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it The like but more terrible hath Saint John Rev. 20. 10. The Divel that deceived them was cast into the Lake of fire and brimstone where the Beast and the false Prophet are and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever and as he adds ver 14. This lake of fire is the second death And Saint Jude tels us that The destruction of Sodom and Gommorrah and the cities about them is set forth as an example or type of this eternal fire that is such fearful torments as that people suffered for a moment the damned shall suffer in hell eternally The ruines of Sodom and Gomorah and the dead sea or brimstone Lake wherein neither fish nor other creature liveth was left unto all future ages to serve as a map or picture of that lake of fire and brimstone which Saint Iohn mentions that is of Hell Now the very steam of such a Lake would stifle or torment flesh and blood to death in a moment the outward senses are not capable of its first impressions 9. Some School-men have moved A more pertinent Question whether this punishment of sense which or the instrumental mean of which is thus described unto us by a Lake of fire and brimstone be greater or lesse then the Poena damni that is Whether their imprisonment or confinement to Hell and their subjection to tormenting Fiends be worse then their Exclusion out of Heaven and the perpetual loss of Gods joyful presence The most Resolve That Poena damni the loss of Gods
or Title of being called the sons of God And under this style it is promised ver 9. Blessed are the peace-makers for they shall be called the sons of God 13. Yet all these qualifications were not sufficient unless they be accompanied with a firm and constant resolution to suffer persecution all the persecution that flesh and blood can in this life devise against them rather then they should forego their humilty their mourning their meekness their love of righteousness their mercifulness and puritie of heart towards God There must be a greater love of all these qualifications here mentioned then of our selves otherwise we shall be uncapable of the least portion of the Blessedness here so often promised This patience in suffering or constant resolution to endure persecution is the very girdle or tie of all other Christian vertues and for this reason it is twice repeated Blessed are they that suffer persecution for righteousness sake ver 10. And again ver 11. Blessed are you when men shall revile you c. 14. Many may be forward to suffer persecution yea to affect it but as he said Res ingeniosa est esse Christianum It is a matter of extraordinary wit to be a true Christian unto true Martyrdom there is required not only sobrietie of spirit but of Iudgement for none can be a Martyr but he that suffers for Righteousness sake or for Christs sake who is such a fountain of righteousness as the sun is of light Now to discern true righteousness from pretended or to sever Christs Cause from our own particular Interest or engagements is a point of extraordinary skill Whereas it is an easie matter to pawn our fame or credit our very lives in maintenance of that which we have boldly avouched to be true and just None were more forward to sacrifice themselves for their Religion then were the Jews which yet blasphemed the name of Christ and the wayes of truth after they had crucified the Lord of truth and of glory none more forward then they to raise up persecution against the Apostles and disciples in every City and albeit many of them were put to cruell and ignominious deaths for their stiff adherence to Moses Law as they imagined yet Martyrs they were not because they died not for Moses sake nor for his sake for whom Moses wrote but for maintenance of their own perverse opinions and affections For though they abhorred the Idols of the heathen yet they committed more abominable sacriledge then the Heathens did for of all kinds of Idolatry or Sacrilegious worship the most untoward and least to be pittied is when men are prone to sacrifice themselves to their own pride or head-strong ignorance 15. The truth is that no man can suffer persecution for righteousness sake but he that is a follower of righteousness and a son of peace No man can suffer persecution for Christs and the Gospels sake but he that hath learned of Christ to be humble and meek And for this reason haply it is that unto such as suffer persecution whether in their body or good name so they suffer it for Christs name the blessedness of the life to come is promised First under the same Style or Title that it was unto the poor in spirit He had said of these ver 3. That theirs is the Kingdom of heaven and of those ver 10. Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven As also secondly under the same Title that it is promised to the meek of whom he had said ver 5. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth And unto such as are reviled and persecuted falsely for his sake he addeth verse 12. Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven 16. And thus hath our Saviour taught us the Use and application of all that hath been delivered concerning Eternal Life And the Use or application of it is as General and large as are the commandments of God There is no duty enjoyned whereunto the hope or belief of this Eternal Reward doth not enable and bind us This was the first Lesson our Saviour taught after he entred upon his Propheticall function and it is the last Article in our Creed It is as Christ himself is Imus angularis lapis et suminus It is both the foundation stone and that which bindeth all the building nor need we be afraid to do well Intuitu mercedis with respect to recompence or reward seeing Christ himself when he first begun to Preach the glad tydings of the Gospel did make no promise of reward save only to such as continue in weldoing or suffer evil with patience And his Apostle Saint Paul exhorting us to cheerfulness in weldoing and patience in suffering proposeth the like hope of reward making Christ Iesus himself a patern for us to follow Wherefore seeing we are also compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us Looking unto Jesus the Author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God Heb. 12. 1 2. Nor is it possible for flesh and blood to resist either their proper Enticements or the temptations of Satan much lesse to vanquish this tempter by any other means then by serious meditation upon the several Rewards proposed unto such as shall overcome and of the several punishments which are threatned and shall be awarded unto all such as forsake the field and neglect the service of God And though it be true that we must obtain this victorie by the spirit of God yet one special means by which the spirit of God obtaines this victory for us is by representing and imprinting such punishments or plagues as are dreadful and fearful even to flesh and blood so that the flesh must be affrighted and deterred from or forth of the wayes of sin by the wages of sin And the spirit of God which is in man must be daily animated and encouraged by the hope of heavenly joyes whose very nature and qualitie is spiritual The flesh or sensitive part cannot truly apprehend the joyes of the spirit nor is the spirit so capable or so apprehensive of deadly punishment or pain as the sensitive or animal part is 17. To branch this Use or Application which our Saviour makes of this point into his proper particulars Though it be true that all of us are the seed of rebellious parents and have gone astray from the womb as well by sins of omission as of commission yet that which the heathen Philosopher long since observed if it be candidly interpreted and with such charity as becometh Christians is likewise true Nemo sponte malus No man in his
Heaven and if those of Sardis were to walk with him in white robes Because they were Worthie The Controversie may seem Concluded That Good Works are meritorious of heavenly Ioyes or of Eternal Life 5. To the latter Objections or frame of Arguments drawn from these and the like places For I was an hungry and you gave me meat c. Calvin makes Answer That these and the like particles Quia Etenim For or Because do not alwayes import or denote The true Cause of things but sometimes only the Order or connexion betwixt them But However this may be True it is not so Punctuall but that Bellarmine and others take their advantage from it as having the Authoritie of the Grammer Rule against it For the particles used in all the places alleged by them are Conjunctions not Copulative or Connexive but Causal And it may seem harsh to say That some conjunction causal doth not import a causalitie It is true Yet sometimes they import no cause at all of the thing it self but onely of our knowledge of it Oft-times again they import no Efficacious causalitie of the thing it self but only Causam sine qua non that is some necessary means or condition without which the Prime and Principal cause doth not produce its Effect To give you examples or Instances of both these observations If there should come into This or the like Corporation A stranger who knowes not any Magistrate by sight he would say surely this is the chief Magistrate Because all others give place unto him because the Ensignes of Authoritie are carried before him Here the word Because must necessarily denote A true cause but not the cause why he is the chief Magistrate for that is only his true and just Election What cause doth it then denote The cause of his knowledge of him to be the chief Magistrate Thus when we come to the knowledge of the cause by the Effect The effect is the cause of our knowledge of the cause As others giving place unto him or the carrying of the Ensignes of Authority before him is not the cause why this or that man is the chief Magistrate for the time being but rather his being the chief Magistrate is the cause why all others give him place and why the Ensignes of Authoritie are born before him Yet these and the like Effects are the true cause or reason of a strangers knowledge of him to be the chief Magistrate And by this Rule we are to interpret that saying of our Saviour many sins are forgiven her for she loved much In which speech it may not be denied but that the Particle For imports A true cause yet no cause of the thing it self to wit of her love For this were utterly to reverse or thwart our Saviours meaning which was no other then this That the forgivenesse of her sins was the cause of her love so was not her Love the cause of the forgiveness of her sins which by our adversaries confession being of Free Grace and of the First Grace which was bestowed upon her could not be merited or deserved Howbeit the manner of expressing of her loue by washing his feet with her tears and wiping them with her hairs was The true cause of every understanding or Observant mans knowledge that many sins were forgiven her and unlesse she had an apprehension of her manifold sins thus freely forgiven her she could not have loved him so much or made such expression of her Love 6. Sometimes again this Particle For or the like causal speech imports only a subordinate or instrumental cause or A necessary means or condition required without which the Positive the Principal and only efficacious cause especially if it work freely doth not produce its intended Effect To put the case home in this present business Suppose a great and potent Prince out of his own meer motion and free grace should proclaim a pardon to an Army of Traytors and Rebels which had in Justice deserved death if a man should ask What is the cause or reason why the Law doth not proceed against them no other cause could be assigned besides the gracious favour of the Prince But if one should further ask Why the pardon being freely promised to all the principal malefactors it may be are pardoned or restored to their blood or advanced to dignities whereas others which were included in the same pardon are exiled or put to death The speech would be proper and in its kinde Truly causal if we should say the one part submitted themselves and craved allowance of their pardon whereas the other stood out and rejected it For it is to be presumed that no Prince being able to quell his rebellious adversaries will suffer any to enjoy the benefit of a General Pardon how freely soever it be granted unlesse they submit themselves unto it and crave the benefit of it with such humility as becomes malefactors or men obnoxious Much lesse will he restore any to blood or advance them to dignities whom he knowes or suspects still to continue ill affected or disloyal in heart So then the not-submission or continuance in rebellion is The true and Positive Cause why the one sort enjoy no benefit of the General Pardon but are more severely dealt withall for rejecting the princes Grace then they should have been dealt withall if no Pardon had been granted The humble submission of the other and their penitence for their former misdeeds is Causa sine qua non that is a necessarie means or Condition without which the Prince how gracious soever would not suffer them to enjoy the benefit of their Pardon would not restore them to their blood would not advance them to greater dignities This is the very Case of Adam and all his sons All of us were Traytors and Rebels against the Great God and King of Heaven who is better able to quell the whole host of mankinde than any Prince his meanest Rebellious subjects yet it pleased him to pardon us more freely then any earthly Magistrate can do a malefactor If then the reason be demanded Why any of mankinde are saved Why they are restored unto their blood and advanced to greater dignitie then Adam in Paradise enjoyed no other true cause can be assigned of these Effects besides The meer grace and mercy of the Almighty Judge But if it be further demanded Why some of mankinde enjoy the benefit of this Pardon and inherit Eternal Life Why others are sentenced to everlasting death When as the free Pardon with its benefits were seriously and sincerely tendred to all The Answer is Orthodoxal and True Because some in true humilitie accepted of the Pardon and craved allowance of it whereas others rejected it and sleighted such Proclamations or significations of it as the God of mercy and compassion had given out not to this or that man only but To all the World So that the Omission of those good works which our Saviour mentions in the
true members of Christ suffer that flock which he hath purchased with his precious blood to starve for want of spiritual Food That flock from which they have reap't carnal Commodities in greatest plenty But here I will not dispute whether Non-Residence or Pluralitie be simply unlawful suppose in former times both had been lawful both necessary when the greatest scarcitie was of Scholars sufficiently qualified for the ministry Is it therefore Now as expedient It had been once more lawful for Baruch to have sought the Ease of a retired life then ever it was for any man to trouble himself with joyning house to house Land to Land or Church to Church But now it is unlawful seekest thou great things for thy self Yet what was his seeking to theirs or what are many of their deserts to his Theirs especially who have scarce been so much as scribes to a learned Prophet scarce ever brought up in Jerusalem at any Gamaliels feet but only came to this our Sion as so many spies to find out the weakness of the place to discover by what devices good Statutes might be frustrate and means made for conferring degrees upon Drones And Drones having once gotten A degree or place in this Bee-hive by others perjury will make shift to get spiritual preferment by their own After unto their Titles in the Schools they have gotten an Ite Praedicate from the Generals of our spiritual warfare they make their entrance into the Church of Christ just so as if it were into the Enemies soyl once inabled to compass a convenient Seat they never think they were placed there as labourers in Christs harvest to gather and break the bread of life to his people they only use it as a Fort or Sconce to gather strength in till they can watch an opportunity for expugning a better And advancements into highest Offices in this spiritual Charge go oft not so much by virtues as the golden mean Experiments are so rife and frequent that not the meanest Arcadian Creature but lives in hope to make himself Lord of the greatest dignitie the Land affords if he be once furnished sufficiently for practise of the Macedonian Stratagem This seeking after great things especially in men of so little worth is at all times odious in the sight of God and injurious to men But in these present times fraught either with examples or fearful threatnings of Gods heavie Judgments in these times wherein superstition increaseth as a Plague growing up to quell hypocrisie and licentiousness farre less desires even all unnecessary seekings are preposterous and abominable and yet in all States through the Land very usual and being so They are Ominous Which was the Corollary proposed I must omit discourse and fall to instance 12. One Age may afford sufficient store of Examples A curious Searcher shall not be able to find any disease either more Dangerous or more Genoral then this late specified disease of Baruch in the Christian world at that time when the Lord did so grievously lance the whole body of it with the swords and spears of the Vandals Gothes Hunnes and other Barbarians scarce known before by name The approach of all or most of them was so sudden and unexpected that a man could scarce imagine what other Errand they had to visit these parts of Europe save only to be Gods Chirurgions in cutting of the dead and unrecoverable members of the Church Of what sort or kind soever the sins of any Age or People be when sinners once come to such height or progress in them as the sight of Gods Judgments or experience of his displeasure cannot perswade men to forsake them It is a true Crisis of General plagues or desolations approaching No sign more deadly then intemperate longing after unseasonable mirth or pleasures of what kind soever especially of such as are contrary to that course of life whereunto God for the present cals men For they that seek after such things plainly declare That they say in their hearts VVe shall have Peace albeit we walk according to the stubbornness of our own hearts Deut. 29. 19. At cum dicant Pax tuta omnia tunc repentinum eis imminet Exitium That the General constitution of the Christian World when the Barbarians over-ran it was altogether such as we have said such as this people for the most part is at this day Salvianus A Reverend Bishop of those times hath left recorded The disease of Carthage he thus discribeth Captivus corde sensu nonne er at populus iste qui inter suorum supplicia ridebat qui jugulari se in suorum jugulis non intelligebat qui se in suorum mori mortibus non putabat Fragor ut it a dixerim extra muros intra muros Proeliorum Ludicrorum Confundebatur c. The like stupiditie and intemperance the same Author out of his experience attributes unto one of the Chief Cities of the Galles whose Inhabitants were so besotted with drunkenness that they could not shake it of when they were beset with death Ad hoc postremo rabida vini aviditate Perventum est ut Principes urbis istius ne tunc quidem de conviviis Surgerent cum jam urbem hostis intraret He that made the Sword then to them hath also made the Plague of Pestilence his Messenger unto us both their Commissions are of equal authority both their Summons should be alike dreadful and yet what day did any die in this City by the Arrow of God but as many or more were dead drunk or had surfeited of their beastly banquets Again in Trevers one of the most flourishing Cities of the Galles and as I take it the Reverend Bishops native soyl so intemperately were the Inhabitants set on their wonted delights and vanitites that after their Citie had been three or four times sacked and did not retain so much as the likeness of what it had been yet they are still the same And as if they had never sowen unto the spirit but altogether unto the flesh as if their sportings and pastimes had been the only harvest they cared to reap No sooner was this storm of War and blood broken up And the beams of peace restored again but they errected their stages even in the fresh Sent of deadly vapors exhaling from their murthered Citizens buried in their Cities ashes Pauci nobiles qui excidio super-fuerant quasi pro summo deletae urbis remedio Circenses ab Imperatoribus postulabant And may not we think unless our Magistrates Religious care had been the greater to have prohibited Stage-playes in these dangerous times of visitation that a great many in this City would have adventured to have been in Circo though death had been appointed to keep the Play-house door Should the Stage-player or other instrument of vanitie have visited our Suburbs within two monethes after our fourth or fifth visitation past more of better rank amongst us would have been more
affraid of being censured as Puritanes for speaking against them though out of this place then would have blushed to have been spectators of their lewd unseasonable sportings in places not so well be fitting their Calling I will not take upon me to Censure this or any like Recreation as altogether unlawful But what time hath been for sundry years past would God this present did presage much better to come wherein the use of these or other more unquestionable recreations might not justly be censured for superfluous if not preposterous And with what indignitie that worthy Bishop did prosecute these unseasonable vanities of his Countrymen I refer you to his books De Gubernatione Providentia a fit Manual for the volume but in these times an excellent Cordial for the matter Ludicra ergo publica Trever pet is Art thou an inhabitant of the miserable more then thrice ransacked Tryers and seekest thou after such fruitlesse toyes as playes Ubi quoeso exercendae Where on Gods name wilt thou have them acted an super bustum Cineres super sanguinem ossa mortuorum upon the Graves upon the ashes upon the blood and bones of thy massacred brethren and fellow Citizens The continuance of this vainitie in the living did in his estimation surpass the misery and infelicitie which had befalne the deceased 13. Death and the destroying Angel which by their often soaring hovering over our heads had over-shadowed this Citie and for the solitariness of these and like assembles had somtimes almost turned our day into night have now Gods name be praised for it taken their flight another way Yet shall not these Admonitions seem altogether so unseasonable now as our sportings were then Though secured we be from present dread yet may we without offence as men that had passed great dangers in their night Distempers or sudden affrights look back by day in Calm and sober thoughts upon our former wayes And I beseech you take these following speeches that distilled from that sage and learned Bishops zealous Pen as preservatives against the like dangerous times to come not as censures or invectives of mine to gall any for what is past Suppose this Reverend Bishop had lived amongst us how would he have taxed the unseasonable Luxuries of late times Go to now Oye that are strong to pour in wine or ye that have verified the Proverb by your practise that Mans life is but a stage play wherein you know to act none but the mimickes part ye that make your selves mutual sport by grieving or abusing others Go to now ye that have quite inverted Solomons Counsel ye that have wholly consecrated your selves to the house of mirth and feasting and hold it a hell to be drawn into the house of mourning where do ye mean to celebrate your wonted sports where shall your meriments where shall your pleasant meetings be what in the City which the Lord so often hath smitten which so often hath groaned under his heavie hand what even then when the sore did run amongst your brethren O fools and slow of heart to believe the writings of the Prophets and frequent Admonitions of so many holy and Religious men might not nature which nurtereth the heathen which teacheth the beasts of the field and birds of the air to know their season have also taught you how unseasonable your mirth how prodigious your insolence hath been What foul indignitie had you offered though you had offered it to a private man to revell it in the room wherein his children wherein his wife had laid a dying What humane heart what civil though unregenerate ear could endure to hear of one and the same family some in the midst of bitterest Agonies praying others swearing or blaspheming some panting for faintness or ratling for want of breath others cackling or shrugging at the sight of wanton sporting And dare you account them for whom Christ Jesus shed his blood lesse dear to him then dearest children are to loving Parents or wives to most loving husbands And what is this City in respect of him would God you would permit it so to be But at the best could you imagine it any more then the Chamber of the great King whom neither the heaven nor the heaven of heavens can contain Shall not his ear who filleth all places with his presence be as able to discern each dissonant noise or disagreeing speech or carriage within the wals or suburbs of this City as the most accurate musicians ear is to distinguish contrary Notes or jarring sounds within the compasse of a narrow parlour And what musick think you will it make in his ears or how will it sound to those harmonical spirits which by his appointment Pitch about this place when they shall hear in one corner some in the Agonie of their souls sending out grievious screiks and bitter outcries others out of their abundant heat of mirth and pastimes filling the streets with profuse immoderate clamors Some again praying with deep sighes and grievous groanes others foaming out their shame in drunken scurrilous or lascivious songs some having their hearts ready to break for grief others to burst their lungs with laughter These beloved have been the abuses in former times which any Reverent and zealous spirit that had lived amongst us justly might and questionless would have taxt more sharply And yet of such reproofes the best of us might well in some measure have been sharers But these dangers are gone long since would God the guilt of our sins were as far removed from us If it remain like times may return again What then remains but that we repent of what is past and take heed of what is to come Lord never let the pensive sighs the mournful groanes or grievous out-cryes of dying men be mingled with our lavish mirth and sportings O let not the songs of pleasure and the voice of death ascend the heavens or appear at thy Tribunal seat together least This most unseasonable discord sound still in thy ear until the sound of the Angels Trumpet summon us to that fearful Judgement wherein they may laugh and we may cry wherein their comfortless sighes and dolorous groanes may be changed into everlasting Haleluiahs of joy and peace and all immoderate unlawful mirth all unseasonable and untimely pleasures be terminated with endless grief And as for such as seek to raise the spirit of unhallowed mirth and belch out their scurrilous Jests by powring in wine and strong drink even in the dayes wherein the Lord hath called them to fasting and mourning O that they could consider the time may come wherein they shall wish for one drop of that liquor for a whole day which now they pour in hourly without measure to cool their scorched tongues And yet unto their greater misery shall not be heard in so miserable a wish but in the continual want of this and all other comfort their pleasant songs shall be turned into bitter howlings Their
wanton motions and mimick gestures into wailing and gnashing of teeth And as for you Reverend Fathers or you my much Respected Brethren to whom any charge of others either private or publick is committed Consider I beseech you what places you bear in these Houses of God All of you in your several Charges sustain the place of righteous Job in his Familie for your fatherly care over inferiors Whilest then your Sons thus banquet in their houses every one his day and send and call their friends to eat and drink with them Be you sure the Lord will require at your hands that you be so much more vigilant in your Callings not only in punishing the Chief Offendors in this kind as some of you have begun though this no doubt will be an acceptable sacrifice unto God but even in offering up your evening and morning sacrifice for them according to the number of their transgressions For doubtless your Sons have grievously offended and blasphemed God in their hearts And therefore you must be so much the more diligent to offer up the sweet incense every day For all of us Beloved in our Lord and Saviour see the dayes wherein we live are extraordinary evil and the time must be redeemed by our extraordinary vigilancie sobriety and sanctitie As others double and treble the sins of this present in respect of former times so must we in like proportion increase our industry and diligence fervent prayer good exhortation charitable deeds and sacred functions Thus would you Reverend Fathers go before us in these duties as you do in dignitie God would restore your lost sons to you again and besides Jobs Restitution in this life you shall certainly be partakers of Daniels Blessing in the life to come For thus turning others unto righteousness by your good Examples you shall shine like Starrs for ever God grant you Governors wise hearts thus to rule And all inferiors Grace to follow your good Examples and Advice Amen The Later Sermon upon this Text. CHAP. XXXVI JEREM. 45. v. 5. For Behold I will bring a Plague or evil upon All Flesh saith the Lord but thy life will I give thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest The Second Doctrine propounded Chap. 35. Sect. 4. handled 1. In Thesi Touching the natural esteem of life in general 2. In Hypothesi Of the Donative of Life to Baruch as the Case then stood That men be not of the same Judgment About the price of Life when they be in heat Action and prosperitie which they be of in dejection of spirit and adversitie proved by instances Petrus Strozius Alvarez De Sande Gods wrath sharpens the Instruments and increases the Terror of Death Life was a Blessing to Baruch though it shewed him all those evils from sight of which God took away good King Josiah in favour to him Baruch as man did sympathize with the miseries of his people As a faithful man and a Prophet of the Lord He conformed to the just will of God The Application 1. OF the Two Aphorisms deduced out of the Text The later left before untouched comes now to be handled And it is This. In times of publick Calamitie or desolation the bare Donative of life and liberty is a priviledge more to be esteemed then the Prerogative of Princes Or in other Terms thus Exemption from General Plagues is more then a full recompence for all the Grievances which attend our ministerial charge or service in denouncing them Of this by Gods Assistance I shall treat without further Division or Method more accurate then that Usual One 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First Of the Natural Esteem of Life or Exemption from common Plagues in General Secondly Of it as the Case here stands with Baruch Vox populi etiam vox Dei est It is the voice of Nature uttering only what is engraven by the Creators Finger in the heart of man and of creatures otherwise dumb Life is sweet and would be so esteemed of all could we resolve to live at home endeavouring rather to improve those seeds of happiness which grace or Nature have sown in us then to encompass large or vast materials of forreign Contentments But unto men whose desires are once diverted from the true End of life unto the remote Meanes destinated for its procurement unto such men as have set their thoughts such Roving Progresses as Pyrrhus did or with the fool in the Gospel are not able to give their souls their Acquietances until they have enlarged their store-houses and laid up goods for many years the attaining of such particulars as for the present they most seek after doth rather whet then satiate their appetite of the like Hence life attended with mean appurtenances becomes either loathsom or little set by because the provision of necessaries actually enjoyed is as nothing in respect of those impertinencies which they have swallowed in hope or have in continual chase The want of these latter unto men wedded unto vast desires is more irksom then the possession of them can be pleasant so that to live without them seems a kind of loss Me-thinks Plinies Hyperbolical or Fabulous Narration of the greedy wild-goose which plucks so eagerly at the roots of what plants I now remember not but so fixt to the ground that she oft-times leaves her neck behind her may be a true Emblem of such mens intemperate pettish hopes usually so fastened to the matters which they much desire that sooner may their souls be drawn out of their bodies then weaned from these Wounds though deep and grievous are scarce felt to smart whilst the blood is hot or the body in motion No marvel then if in the fervent pursuit of honour gain or pleasure men sometimes suffer their souls to escape out of their prison before the flight be discerned In fine as young Gallants for speedy supplies of luxurious expences usually morgage their Lands ere they know their worth So life it self is oftentimes hazarded upon light termes by such as know not what it is to live We have heard of a Souldier so forward to take the advantage which Chance of War had given that he cried out unto his Captain Follow and we shall have a day of them whereas a perpetual night was taking possession of his eyes his entrals being let out whilst he uttered these words I can more easily believe this of an English spirit though not in print because it is upon Authentick Record that Petrus Strozius a famous Italian Commander being shot with a bullet of a larger size under the left pap fell down dead to the ground leaving these words behind him in the air The French King hath lost a true and faithful servant It seems his heart had been too full fraught with swelling Conceits of his own worth I could instance in many did the time permit which have either encountred death with such und antedness or suffered life to be taken from them with so
matter at least to the Prophets foresight of question But that the Lord would repent him of the plagues denounced so they would pray in faith was Iuris liquidi a point whereof he never doubted Nor is it possible our hearts should ever be throughly pierced with the right conceit either of our own or of our Countries sins without this undoubted Perswasion of Gods infinite love towards all and every one of us Impossible it is for us his Embassadors to be armed with such indefatigable Courage and diligence as the times require either for discharge of our duty in denouncing his plagues against the impenitent or in averting men from impenitency and exciting them to true repentance until our souls be firmly possessed with the Prophets Doctrine Of Gods immutable Facility to repent him of such plagues as without our repentance are eternally and immutably decreed against us These Alternations of Gods loving kindness and severitie towards the Same People yea towards the same Individual Persons are as the Tropicks under which the Messengers of Peace must constantly run their contrary courses sometime exhorting with all long-suffering to embrace his mercies otherwhile sharply reproving and powerfully threatning his fearful Judgements Constancy in truly observing and duly entertaining the just occasions of this contrariety in the matter of our message is as the Centre on which our souls being throughly setled the whole Frame of our affections whether of love unto their persons or of hate unto their sins over whom he hath made us over-seers becomes parallel to the Almighties Will who though he punish the impenitent with death temporal and eternal yet doth he not will their impenitencie but useth all meanes possible to bring them unto true repentance 12. It is I confess A matter hard for flesh and blood to conceive so much as may satisfie this desire of knowing the manner how Omnipotency should for many generations be possessed with an eager longing after a peoples safety which in the end must be destroyed How the great Creator of Heaven and Earth which gave Being to all things by his Word and made our souls immortal by his breath should be as it were in a continual childbirth of sinful men seeking to fashion and quicken them with the Spirit of Life and yet they after all this travel prove but abortive and mis-shapen like the untimely fruit of a woman which never saw the Sun never to be seen amongst the living But no marvel if we poor Worms of the earth blind and naked perceive not the force or nature of those burning flames of eternal and unchangeable Love such is the very nature of our God seeing they are seated in that glorious inaccessible light Yet of that eternal and glorious Sun whose brightness no mortal eye may look upon and live we may behold a true and perfect Module in the Ocean of mercy and compassion in the watry eyes of the Son of God with sighs bewailing impoenitent Jerusalems woful Case If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy day the things that belong unto thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes Luke 19. 42. And elsewhere O Hierusalem Hierusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee how often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not Matth. 23. 37. If Christ Jesus as truly God as man did thus thirst after Ierusalems peace after Ierusalem thus glutted with the Prophets blood did thirst most eagerly after his farre be it from us to think his loving kindness is utterly estranged from us albeit our sins have made a great separation betwixt him and us Let us not then trifle out the time with Curious Disputes concerning the manner of his Decree but rather seek him with all speed and diligence whilest he may be found laying sure hold on his mercie before the swift approach of his iudgements violently haled down each day more than other by the grievous weight of our sins remove it without the reach of Ordinary Repentance 13. It is a truth most delightful and comfortable to Contemplate That The Immensitie of our God is as full of mercy and compassion as the Sea is of water or the body of the Sun of light But let us withall consider That the more abundant his loving kindness towards us the more sweet and fragrant his invitations have been the more grievously have we provoked his fierce wrath and indignation by our continual wilful refusal to be gathered under the shadow of his wings daily stretcht out in mercy for our safety Be we sure God knows his own as well as we do ours and will not be over-reached by us The longer we deferre the renewing of his wonted favours the dearer we must account it will cost us our suit at death will be more difficult Those prayers those tears those sighs or other attendants or concomitants of true repentance which in times past would have gone for currant will hereafter be esteemed light or counterfeit And yet alas Who is he in Court or Country in the City or in the Village in the Academy or among the Ignorant or illiterate that layes his own or others sins to heart as he should Or poures forth such fervent prayers and supplications unto his God as our Predecessors have done upon lesse signification of his displeasure and fewer fore-warnings of his judgements then we have had continually these divers years past Yea who is he amongst all the Sons of Levi that with Jeremy and Baruch hath utterly disavowed all care or study of his own advancement or contentment that he may entirely consecrate his soul his thoughts and best imployments to his Masters will to take away the precious from the vile to be as Gods mouth to cause others to conform themselves to him not to conform himself to them To set himself as a wall of brass for this rebellious people to fight against whilst he thunders out Gods judgments against great and small without all respect of persons Nay doth not Nobility Gentry and Commonalty Clergy and Laity yea I dare say it as well singula generum as genera singulorum so mightily set their minds on great matters and so stretch their inventions either for getting more or for improving what they have gotten to the utmost value as if we would give God and men to understand that we had no inheritance in that Good Land wherein The Lord placed our Fathers But only a short Remainder of an expiring Estate which we despere to renew or as if we would have it proclaimed in Gath or published in Askalon that the fear of them is already fallen upon the natural Inhabitants of this Land now labouring only to prevent them in gathering up the present commodities or to defeat them of their expected spoil We demean our selves just as the manner is when Enemies more potent then can safely be forthwith
members of the same Church without dissension And of all the Points in Divinity this day controverted in any Church or betwixt the members of any Church there is no one that doth naturally better brook diversitie of Opinions or acurate sifting without hazard of breaking the bond of Christian peace and charitie then the Controversie about the Certaintie of Salvation or of Perseverance in the state of Grace For Christian charity would presume that every man which hath his senses exercised in these or the like Points is desirous to be as certain of his own Salvation or estate in Grace as with safety of conscience his own understanding or rule of reason will permit him or can make him Such as know their own Estate in Grace by experience or otherwise stand bound in equity in Christian charity and in humanity rather to pity then to exasperate their brethrens weakness which have not the skill or like Experience to conclude for themselves so well as they do or which doubt whether the doctrine in Thesi in the General be true or false And yet we see by woful experience that the Contentions about these Points have been so bitter and so uncivil that no Papist or other Adversary shall ever be able to say more against the Certaintie of Salvation or mens Irreversible Estate in Grace then many such as have written for it have said against themselves For if by the Grace which they hold impossible for men to fall from they mean the Spirit of wisdom or understanding in matters spiritual or the Spirit of meekness of sobrietie and Christian charitie every man that hath any branch of the Spirit of Grace implanted in him may conclude without sin that many which contend most earnestly for Absolute perseverance in it either never had this Grace or else are totally fallen from it 11. The Third Point proposed was the Golden Mean which the Church of England mainteins as opposite to these Contrary Extremes but most consonant to the Evangelical Truth First Our Church doth acknowledge That Fides is Fiducia That the very nature of that Faith which differenceth a Believer from an Infidel or a Christian from a meer natural man doth necessarily include a Certaintie or full Assurance in it It must be without wavering without distrust or Doubt The only Question is About the right or orderly placing of this Certaintie of Faith or full Assurance Or What be the Points whereon it first must be pitched These questionless must be Points Fundamental and such is that That the Son of God did die for us that he did fully pay the price of our Redemption This every man is firmly to beleive otherwise he builds without a Foundation This Certainty of Faith or full assurance you shall find continually prest upon all hearers in the Book of Homilies and other Acts of the Church But how shall every private man be fully assured that Christ did die for him and that he fully paid the price of his redemption Sure no man can have a right or full assurance of this Particular unless he first assuredly believe that the Son of God did die for all men that he hath redeemed all mankind He that firmly and constantly believes this Proposition in some respect universal The Son of God did die for all men can never doubt or waver in Faith whether he died for him or whether he hath paid the full Price of his Redemption He which believes the General by an Historical or Moral Faith cannot chuse but believe the particular by the same Faith He that believes the General by a spiritual and true Christian Faith must believe the particular by the same Faith If the first Proposition Christ died for All men be De Fide The Second likewise Christ died for me must be De Fide too But how any man should have Assurance of Faith That Christ did die for him or hath redeemed him unless he be first assured by Certaintie of Faith That Christ did die for all men This I confess is a Point which I could never be assured of nor be satisfied in by any that plead for Special Faith 12. Sure I am that the Church our Mother doth teach us to begin our Faith or Assurance from the General Christ died for All men he hath redeemed all mankind And this General She grounds upon that Saying of our Saviour John 3. 16. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life The Application or Use of this place you may find pithily prest in the third Part of the Homily Upon the Death and Passion of our Saviour To whom saith the Author of the Homily did he give his Son To the whole world that is to say to Adam and to all that come after him He was not given to Adam nor to such as come after him until Adam and all that came after him were lost until mankind were become his enemies And this is that which sets forth The wonderful love of God unto the world that he would give his only Son whom he loved for all of us which were his enemies Scarcely for a righteous man will one die saith the Apostle Rom. 5. 7. yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die But God commendeth his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners he died for us 13. But when we are taught to beleive that Christ died as well for every one of us as he died for any we are bound to beleive not only that he shed as much blood for every one of us as he did for St. Peter or St. Paul but that he shed as much blood for every one of us as he did for all men That he paid as great a price for my redemption as he paid for the Redemption of all mankind It was not the Quantitie of his blood shed but the infinite Value of each drop which he shed that did pay the price of our Redemption Had the whole stream of his blood been much greater then it was if it had been of value less then infinite it could not have payed the price of one mans redemption and of price more then infinite his blood what-ever quantitie had been shed could not be for all So that he did as much for thee as he did for both thee and me as much for either of us as he did for the whole world His deservings of every one of us are infinite Were this apprehension or belief of the infinite and undivided love of God in Christ toward all and every man rightly planted in mans heart it would bring forth the fruits of Love he which is thus perswaded of Christs love towards him in particular would love Christ and would keep his Commandements would trust in Christ and in all temptations rely upon him 14. To conclude all concerning The right ordering or placing of that Certaintie or full
Lord to utter these words Or which is all one The fulfilling of his imprecation according to the Mystical sense Third The discussion of such Cases of Conscience or controversed Divinity as are naturally emergent out of the Mystical or Literal sense and are useful for this present or future Ages To begin with the Circumstance of the time wherein they were uttered That apparently was the dayes of King Joash Heir and Successor unto Ahaziah King of Judah who was next Successor save one unto good Jehoshaphat by lineal direct descent but no Successor at all to him in vertue or goodness or happiness of Government For Ahaziah was Pessimi patris haud melier proles a very wicked son of a most wicked father and too hard to say whether he or his Father Jehoram were the worse King or more unfortunate Governour But Joash the Orphan Son of Ahaziah hath the Testimonie of the Spirit of God That he ruled well whilst Jehiiada the High-Priest did live 2 King 12. 2. And his zeal to the House of the Lord recorded at large in this chapter as also in the 2 Kings 12. 4. was so great as more could not be expected or conceived either of Jehoshaphat Hezekiah or good Josiah And thus he continued from the seventh year of his Age until the five or six and thirtieth at the least A competent time a man would think for a full and firm growth in goodness But amongst the Sons and Successors of David we may observe that some begun their Reign very well and ended ill Others being extream bad in their beginning did end better then the other begun So Manasses in the beginning and middle of his Reign filled the City with innocent blood and died a Penitentiary This present King Joash begun and continued his Reign for thirty years or thereabouts in the spirit but ended in the flesh or rather in blood leaving a perpetual stain upon the Throne and Race of David This strange Apostacie or Revolt argues that his fore-mentioned goodness and zeal unto the House of the Lord was Adventitious and not truly rooted in his own brest That the fair Lineaments of a pious man and noble Prince were drawn not by his own skill but by the manuduction of Jehoiada the High-Priest as Children oft-times make fair letters while their Tutors guide their hands but spatter and blot and dash after they be left to their own guidance Jehoiada saith the Text waxed old and was full of dayes an hundred and thirty years old was he when he died and they buried him in the City of David among the Kings because he had done good in Israel both towards God and towards his House The solemnization of his death was a strong Argument of the respect and love which both Prince and People did bear unto him whilst he lived and much happier might both of them have been had they continued the same respect unto his Son and Successor But they buried their love unto Jehoiada and which was worst the zeal which he had taught unto the House of God in his Grave For so it followeth verse 17 18. Now after the death of Jehoiada came the Princes of Iudah and made obeysance to the King Then the King hearkened unto them and he left the House of the Lord God of their Fathers and served Groves and Idols Yet Gods love to them doth not determine with the beginning of their hate unto the House of God and to his faithful Servants For notwithstanding that wrath came upon Iudah and Ierusalem for this their trespasse yet he sent Prophets to them to bring them again to the Lord and they testified against them but they would not give ear And the Spirit of the Lord came upon or cloathed Zechariah the Son of Iehoiada the Priest who stood above the people and said unto them Thus saith God Why transgress ye the Commandement of the Lord that ye cannot prosper Because ye have forsaken the Lord he hath also forsaken you And they conspired against him and stoned him with stones at the Commandment of the King in the Court of the House of the Lord. Thus Ioash the King remembred not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done unto him but slew his Son and when he dyed he said or inter moriendum dixit The Lord look upon it and require it 3. But did the Lord hearken to him or require his blood at the Kings and Princes hands which slew him Yes that he did oftner then once For it was required of their posterity But for the present he did visit both the King and his Princes most remarkably by an unexpected Army of the Syrians unto whose Idolatrous Rites they had now conformed themselves complying too well with them and with their neighbors the Heathen in all sorts of wickedness But here the Polititian will reply That the Syrians did upon other occasions intend to do some mischeif to the King the Princes and People of Judah For it was never unusual to that Nation to vex or molest Israel or Judah Nunc olim quocunque dabant se tempore vires As often as opportunity served as often as they could spy advantage And to assign the Probable or meritorious Causes of such Plagues as befal any Nation by their inveterate enemies unto the Judgment of God for this or that sin is not safe specially for men not endued with the Spirit of Prophecie In many Causes I confess it is not yet in this particular we need not be afraid to say as much as the Spirit of God or sacred authority of his Word hath taught us We say no more as indeed we need not for the point is so plainly and punctually set down by the pen-man of this Book from verse 23. to the 26. as it needs no Comment no paraphrase or marginal conjecture any of which would rather soyl then clear the meaning of the Text. And it came to passe at the revolution of the year that the hoast of Syria came up against him and they came to Judah and Ierusalem and destroyed all the Princes of the people from amongst the people and sent the spoyls of them to Damascus c. 4. The Observations or plain Uses which these Literal Circumstances of this Story afford are many I shall touch upon some principal ones As First To admonish Kings or other supreme Magistrates to reverence and respect their Clergy seeing Ioash did prosper so well while he followed the advice and counsel of the High-Priest Iehoiada but came to this fearful and disastrous end first by contemning the warning of Zechariah the Cheif-Priest and afterward by shedding of the innocent blood of this great Prophet of the Lord. But this will be a common place not so proper to this time and place wherein we live wherein there is such happy accord between the supream Majestie and the Prelacie and Clergie of this Kingdom as no good Patriot can desire more then the continuance of it
Secondly There lies open a spacious field for such as affect to expatiate in Common Places or dilate upon that Old Maxim Laici semper sunt infensi Clericis to tax the inveterate enmity of secular men against the Clergie Whose violent out burstings into Prodigious Outrages did never more clearly appear then in the wicked suggestions of the Princes of Iudah unto infortunate King Joash against this Godly High-Priest Zechariah for his zeal unto the House and service of the God of their Fore-fathers But however the like prodigious cruelty had not been exemplified before this time yet in many later ages the Prelacie or Clergie have not come an inch short of these Lay-Princes in working and animating Kings and supream Magistrates to exercise like tyranny and oppressing cruelty not upon Laicks only but upon their Godly and religious Priests or inferior Clergie The Histories almost of all Ages and Nations since the death of Maurice the Emperor unto this last Generation will be ready to testifie whensoever they shall be heard or read more then I have said against the Romish Hierarchy whose continual practises have been to make Christian Kings the Executioners of their furious spleen against their own Clergie or neighbor Princes or to stirre up the rebellion of Lay-subjects against all such of their Leige-Lords or Soveraigns as would not submit themselves their Crowns and Dignities or which is more their Consciences unto Peters pretended Primacie The sum of all I have to say concerning this Point is This As there seldom have been any very Good Kings or extraordinary happy in their Government whether in the line of David or in Christian Monarchies without advice and assistance of a Learned and Religious Clergie so but a few have proved extremely bad without the suggestions of covetous corrupt or ambitious Priests So that the safest way for chief Governors is to keep as vigilant and strong Guards upon their own brests and consciences as they do about their bodies or palaces Now the special and safe guard which they can entertain for their souls and consciences is to lay to heart the Examples of Gods dealing with former Princes with the Kings of Judah especially according to the esteem or reverence or the dis-esteem which they did bear unto his Laws and Services 5. Another special meanes to secure even Greatest Monarches from falling into Gods wrath or revenging hand is not to hearken unto not to meditate too much upon or at least not to misconstrue a Doctrine very frequent in all Ages to wit That Kings and supreme Magistrates are not subject to the authority of any other men nor to the coercive authoritie of humane Laws The Doctrine I dare not I cannot in conscience deny to be most true and Orthodoxal And for the truth of it I can add one Argument more then usual That Gods judgments in all Ages or Nations have not been more frequently executed by Counter-passion or Retaliation upon any sort or state of men then upon Kings or Princes or greatest Potentates which pollute their Crowns and Dignities with innocent blood as King Joash did or with other like out-crying sins As if the most Just and Righteous Lord by innumerable Examples tending to this purpose would give the world to understand That none are fit to exercise Iurisdiction upon Kings or Princes besides himself and withall to instruct even Greatest Monarchs that their Exemption from all Controulment of humane Laws cannot exempt or priviledge them from the immediate judgement of his own hands or from the contrivance of his just punishments by the hands of others as by his instruments though his Enemies Agents I forbear to produce more instances of Divine Retaliation upon most Soveraign Princes besides this one in my Text which a bundantly justifieth both parts of my last Assertion or Observation Ioash as you heard before and may read when you please did more then permit did authorize or command the Princes of Iudah to murther their High-Priest Zachariah in the Court of the Lords House A prodigious liberty or licence for a King to Grant and more furiously executed by the Princes of Iudah his Patentees or Commissioners for this purpose And yet the most righteous Judge of all the world did neither animate nor authorize the Prophets Priests or Levites or other cheif men in this Kingdom to be the avengers of Blood or to execute judgement upon the King or Princes of Iudah This service in Divine Wisdom and Justice was delegated to the Syrians their neighbor Nation And the Hoast not by their own skill or contrivance but by the disposition of Divine Providence did Geometrically and exactly proportion the execution of vengeance to the quality and manner of the fact The Princes of Iudah who had murthered Zechariah in the Courts of the Temple of the Lords House were all destroyed by the Syrian Hoast in their own Land and the spoil of their Palaces sent unto the King of Damascus And King Ioash by whose authority Zechariah was stoned to death in his Pue or Pulpit after the Syrians had grievously afflicted him was slain in his own Palace upon the bed of his desired or appointed rest by the hands of two of his own servants yet neither of them by birth his native Subject the one the son of an Ammonitess the other of a Moabitess both the illegitimate off-spring of two of the worst sort of aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel In all this appears the special finger of God But though all this were done by Gods appointment yet may we no way justifie the conspiracy of Ioash his own servants against him though both aliens unless we knew what speciall warrant they had for the execution of Gods judgments which are alwayes most just However we have neither warrant nor reason to exclaim against them or their sins so farre or so much as by the warrant of Gods Word we might against the Princes of Iudah for the instigating of their lawful King or Liege-Lord to practice such prodigious cruelty as hath been exprest upon Zechariah the Lords High-Priest or against the disposition of the stiffe-necked Jewish Nation in general most perspicuous for the Crisis at that time 6. But to exclaim against the Princes or People of that Age we need not for their posterity hath amplified the cursed Circumstances of this most horrible Fact and charged these their fore-fathers with such a measure of iniquity as No Orator this day living without their directions or instructions could have done Septies in die cadit justus The just man fals seven times a day was an ancient and an authentick Saying if meant at all by the Author of it of sins and delinquences rather then of crosses and greivances which fall upon them or into which they fall was never meant of Grosser sins or transgressions But of that dayes work wherein Zechariah was slain these later Jews say Septem transgressiones fecit Israel in illo die I shall not over-English their
meaning if I render it thus Israel that very day committed seven deadly sins at once that is without interposition or intervention of any good work or thought First They allege Zechariah was their High Priest and to kill a Priest though of inferior rank was a sin amongst all Nations more then equivalent to the killing of a meer secular Potentate A sin sometimes more unpardonable then any sin could be committed within this Kingdom besides the making of Allom. Secondly As these Jews allege Zechariah was a Prophet and to kill a Prophet was the next degree of comparison in iniquity unto the laying of violent hands upon Kings and Princes for he which forbid To touch his annointed did also forbid to do his Prophets any harm both are given in the same charge Thirdly Zechariah was a second Magistrate among his People and to kill a prime Magistrate is more then murther or at least a mixture of Murther and Treason Fourthly This Priest and great Magistrate by the Testimony of their sons who murthered him was upright and entire in the discharge of all his Offices and a man unblemished for his life and conversation Fifthly they polluted the Courts of the Lords House within whose precincts Zechariahs bloud was shed without such reverence to the place as Jehoiada his Father upon a farre greater exigencie for the preservation of Ioash and his Kingdom did observe For he would not suffer Athaliah though guilty of murther of the Royal Seed and of high Treason against the Crown of David to be put to death within the Courts of the Temple but commanded her to be killed at the Gates of the Kings House Chap. 23. 14. Sixthly As these Iewish Rabbins observe Their fore-fathers polluted the Sabbath of the Lord for on a Sabbath day as it is probable not from their testimony only but from the Text Zachariah was thus murthered That which makes up the full number of seven and the measure of their unexpiable iniquity the Sabbath wherein this unexpiable murther was committed was the Sabbath of the great Feast of Attonement All these transgressions or deadly sins for every circumstance seems a transgression or principal sin not an accessary were committed in one day or at once Another circumstance these later Iews charge their fore-fathers withal That they did not observe the Law of the * Deer or of the Hart after they shed Zachariah's innocent blood for they did not so much as cover it with dust But this Circumstance will fall into the discussion of the Third General proposed The sins or circumstances hitherto mentioned were enough to sollicitate the Execution of Zachariah's dying prayers or imprecations Lord look upon it and require it Another circumstance for aggravation of this sin specially on King Io ash his part omitted by the later Iews might here be added For that this good man this godly Priest and Prophet of the Lord Zachariah was by birth and bloud of nearest kindred as we say Cousin Germane to Ioash as being the Son by lawful descent of Iehoshabeath daughter of Iehoram sister to Ahaziah and so Aunt to King Ioash whom Iehoiada the Priest had to wife 2 Chron. 22. 11. 7. But did these Aggravations or curious Commentaries of later Jews upon this and the like sins of their fore-fathers any way help to prevent the like diseases in such as made them Rather their Exclamations against them and Rigid Reformation of them and their affected Zeal unto the Prophets whom their Fathers had murthered did cast them into farre worse diseases of pride and hypocrisie whose symptomes were fury madness and splenctical passions which in the issue brought out more prodigious murther as will better appear in the Second General proposed which was The Emblematical portendment of this cruel and prodigious Fact against Zechariah or the accomplishment of his imprecations according to the mystical sense For proof of our last Assertion or Conclusion of the Literal sense no better Authority can be alleged or desired then the authority of our Saviour Christ No better Commentaries can be made upon the mystical sense of the former History then he who was the Wisdom of God made upon it Matth. 23. verse 29. Wo to you Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites so he had indicted them seven or eight times in this Chapter before But the height or rather the depth of their hellish hypocrisie was reserved unto this verse and the original thus expresseth it Because ye build the tombs of the Prophets and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous and say If we had been in the dayes of our Fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets wherefore ye be witnesses unto your selves that ye are the children of them which killed the Prophets What if they were so What will follow Must the children be punished for their fathers sins or for the acknowledgment of them Surely no! if they had repented of them But to garnish the Sepulchers of the Prophets or the righteous men whom their Fathers had killed was no good Argument of their true Repentance So farre was this counterfeit Zeal unto the memory of deceased Prophets from washing away the guilt of blood wherewith their fore-fathers had polluted the Land that it rather became the nutriment of hatred and of murtherous designs against the King of Prophets and Lord of life And to this effect the words of the Evangelist St. Luke chap. 11. ver 48. would amount were they rightly scann'd and fully express'd Truly ye bear witness and allow the deeds of your fathers for they killed them to wit the Prophets and righteous and ye build their sepulchres In building the Sepulchres and acknowledging their fathers sins which killed the Prophets they did bear Authentick Witness that they were their sons And in not bringing forth better fruits of Repentance then the beautifying of their Graves they did bear witness against themselves that they were but as Graves as our Saviour saith in the 44. verse which appear not or do not outwardly shew what is contained in them and the men that walk over them are not aware of them 8. That the Scribes and Pharisees who were respectively Priests and Lawyers did more then witness that they were the sons of them which killed the Prophets that they did though not expresly yet implicitely more then allow their Fathers deeds and were at this instant bent to accomplish them is apparent from our Saviours fore-warnings or threatnings against them Matt. 23. 32 33. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers ye generation of vipers how can ye escape the damnation of hell or the judicature unto Gehennah That the Scribes and Pharisees and the People misled by them were now prone to make up the full measure of their Fathers sins is apparent from Matth. 23. 34 and 35. Wherefore behold I send unto you Prophets and Wisemen and Scribes and some of them ye shall or will kill crucifie and some of
Kiriath-jearim who for prophesying against Hicrusalem was put to death 240. years after Zechariah by Jehoiachim King of Judah and by his Council of State and of Warre and was fetcht back from Egypt whither he had fled for refuge by Elnathan the son of Achbor a great Counsellor of State and other Commissioners for this purpose unto Iehoiachim who slew him with the sword and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people And this Prophets blood and other indignities done unto him and to his Calling after his death were Required of that Present Generation of the King especially For as Ieremie perhaps taking his hint from this Bloody Fact had foretold so it came to pass that Iehoiachim was cast out of Ierusalem not into the Graves of the Common people but into the Open Fields for he had no other burial then the Burial of the Ass or other like contemptible creature But however the blood perhaps of this Prophet amongst many others was to be further Required of this Present Generation Yet Zacharias was the Last and I think the First of all the Prophets which at the moment of his death did beseech God to Require his blood and to revenge his death And this I take is the true Reason why Our Saviour after he had indicted the Jews of the blood of all the Prophets and righteous men shed from the foundation of the world should instance only in Abel the son of Adam and Zacharias the son of Iehoiada or Barachiah Christs Instance in Abel literally and punctually referres to that Dialogue betwixt God and Cain Gen. 4. 10. The Lord said unto Cain where is Abel thy Brother And he said I know not Am my brothers keeper And he said what hast thou done The voyce of thy brothers blood cryeth to me from the ground and now art thou cursed from the earth which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brothers blood from thy hand But did the voyce of Zacharias his blood cry in like manner unto the Lord after his death or sollicit the like Curse or vengeance upon them which shed it or their posteritie as Abels did yes besides the fore-mentioned Imprecation Lord look upon it and Require it which was uttered by him after a great part of his blood and Spirits were spent his blood spake as bad things as that of Abels For so the Iewish Rabbins besides that Cluster of seven deadly sins committed by their fore-fathers at once in the murther of Zacharias mention another Circumstance subsequent not recorded in Scripture or not so plainly as a Christian Reader without their Comment or Tradition would take notice of it which in my Opinion doth better illustrate that passage of Scripture whereon they ground or seek to countenance it then any Christian Commentator hath done Our Fathers say they in shedding Zacharias's blood did not observe the Law of the blood of the Deer or Hart For so it was commanded Levit. 17. 13. Whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel or of the strangers that so journ among you which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten he shall even pour out the blood thereof and cover it with dust But Zacharias blood though shed in the Temple was not so covered it was apparent To this purpose they allege that of the Prophet Ezekiel chap 24. 6. Wo unto the bloody City Her blood is in the middest of her she set it upon the top of a rock she poured it not upon the ground to cover it with dust that it might cause fury to come up to take vengeance No question but the Prophets entire purpose was to indict Jerusalem as our Saviour doth in my Text of all the Innocent blood that had been shed before his time within her Territories and withall to note her Impudence in committing such foul sins so openly without care to cover the conspicuous marks of her own shame Yet this no way argues that the Prophets did not point out some Memorable and Prodigious Fact which might serve as an Emblem of her shameless carelessness in all the rest Such Allusions to particulars sufficiently known in their own times are very usual in the Prophets This is the special Reason why their Writings in General are so obscure to us why some of their Metaphors seem harsh or farre fetcht because in truth their speeches in these Cases are not meerly Metaphorical but include Historical References to some famous Accidents present or fresh in memory From the same Cause all antient Satyrists or such as tax the capital vices of their own times are hardly understood by later Ages without the Comments of such as lived with them or not long after them as our Posterity within few years will hardly understand some passages in the Fairie Queen or in Mother Hubbards or other Tales in Chaucer better known at this day to old Courtiers then to young Students It may be these murtherers sayd of Zachariah as their posteritie said of our Saviour His blood be on us and on our Children It is not likely they would be careful to cover it with dust or wipe the stain of it whilest fresh out of the wals or stones of the Temple because they had solemnly forsaken the House of the Lord and made a league to serve Groves and Idols willing perhaps to let the Print of his blood remain to terrifie others from beeing too forward in reproving the King and His Council for their offences against God But whether the marks of it were left on purpose or through mere forgetfulness of this people God in his Providence as the Prophet intimates suffered it so to remain To cause fury to come and to take vengeance For whereas this fact or forgetfulness to cover it was in the words before attributed to Jerusalem Her blood is in the middest of her she set it up on the top of the Rock she poured it not upon the ground to cover it with dust The Prophet after intimation of the Cause why it so remained To cause fury c. Immediately adds in the Person of God I have set her blood upon the top of a rock that it should not be covered Of these words no meaning can be rendred more natural then This To wit That God did suffer the print of Zachariah's righteous blood to remain in the Temple as it were to sollicit vengeance for all the rest that had been or should be shed in Jerusalem to crie unto him as Abel's did from the earth which as it seems was not covered certainly the voice of it was not smothered with dust How long the stain of blood especially dashed out of the body by violence will be apparent upon stones or moist wals experience doth not often teach because it is usually covered or wiped off whilest it is fresh Yet some prints of blood have longer remained unless Domestick Traditions be false on stones then the blood it self could have done by course of
nature in the veins that inclosed it Albeit we may with good probability presume that Zachariah's blood if we consider the manner of his death might continue by Gods permission or appointment farre above the time that any Ordinary Experience can testifie More strange it is which Ecclesiastical Writers report of this Prophets body that being crushed with stones it should be found otherwise intire and uncorrupt in the dayes of Theodosius which was above a thousand years after his death Unless they had greater Occasion then I can conceive to lie I neither dare distrust this Report of theirs nor the other Tradition of the Jews by whose account the stain of His blood remained a greater part of two hundred years in the Temple However we may with good probability conclude that the true Reason why our Saviour mentioned Zachariah's death as one special Cause of Ierusalems last destruction was not because he was the last or one of the last of the Prophets that had been murthered by the Scribes and Pharisees Fore-elders but rather because his murther was the most foul Prodigious Fact that was committed in that Land and did from the very Commission of it portend Destruction to the Temple and the Consequents of it fore-shadowed the miseries which were afterwards to befal the Nation The truth of this Conclusion will better appear from Discussion of the third Point proposed 7. And this was Whether the blood of Zacharias and other Prophets or of our Saviour and others after him were more especially required of this Generation Or Whether this Generation and their posterity were so grievously plagued as we know they were for their own personal offences against the Person of the Son of God or for communicating with their fathers in shedding the blood of the Prophets and of other righteous men The modern Jews peremptorily deny Their long Exile and Calamitie to have been inflicted upon them as a just punishment for putting Christ to death because their Fathers did not in their judgment therein offend Divers Christian Writers as it usually fals out refuting this Error of theirs run into a Contrary ascribing the Greivousness of their memorable plagues unto their personal offences against our Saviour being otherwise free from the sins wherein their fathers grievously trespassed Maldonate the Iesuite is so farre addicted to this Opinion that he thinks our Saviour in my Text spake but according to Vulgar Language As if to a Malefactor which had escaped often but is afterward taken for some notorious murther which cannot be pardoned men would say he should now pay for all his villanies not that they mean he shall suffer several punishments for several offences or more greivous tortures then were due for his last fact alone but that he should have judgement without mercie and be punished as grievously as might be though for it only Thus much then and no more he thinks our Saviour would have signified That the Scribes and Pharisees should suffer such greivous calamities for murthering Him and his Apostles as they might well seem to be plagued for their Fathers cruelties Howbeit they were not at all punished for them but only for their own For saith he although neither they nor their Fathers had killed either Prophet Apostle or Disciple but Christ alone they had deserved greater plagues for killing him then are recorded by Iosephus This last Assertion I confess is no less true then Non-concludent for the Conclusion to be inferred was not what manner of Plagues they did deserve for putting our Saviour to death but whether these punishments were de Facto inflicted for putting him to death or for the murther of Zachariah and other Prophets whom not their fathers only but they had slain for so our Saviour layeth the Charge of Zachariah's blood unto them in particular whom YE slew between the Temple and the Altar 8. A good Auditor must be able not only to give a true Onus or Charge but withal to make right Allocations or Deductions otherwise he shall often over-reckon himself or wrong such as are to deal with him The like skill is required in making such Calculatory Arguments as Maldonate and many other good Christians use in aggravating the offences of this Present Generation of the Jews against Our Saviour Let them lay the Charge of the later Jews trespasses as deep as they list or can we shall be able to make the Deductions or Allocations much-what equal so that Computatis computandis the greatest part or fullest measure of the blood which came now to be required of this Generation must arise as the literal meaning of my Text imports from the righteous blood of Zacharias and other Prophets unjustly shed in former Ages and unrepented of by this present Generation They must lay their Charge from the Infinite Excess of Christs Dignitie in respect of other Prophets for His Person was in Majestie truly Infinite We are to make the Deduction from his Infinite Power and Facility to forgive offences against himself or his Person For questionless he did as farre exceed all the Prophets in Goodness in Mercie and loving kindness as he did in Majestie and Greatness And had Peculiar Power and Authority to forgive sins and remit those plagues which the Prophets had denounced against Jerusalem and her children Nor could the malice of his enemies against him be more available to procure then His prayers and tears for Jerusalems peace were to pacifie his Fathers wrath against it especially for their offences against his Person alone 9. The flagrant Expressions of his special Love unto Ierusalem not yet alienated from the worst sort of this present Generation if we compare them with this Threatning fore-warning in my Text and in the words before it will bear this sense or brook this Paraphrase However I see and know you more maliciously bent against me then Cain was against his brother Abel then your fore-fathers Prince or People were against Zachariah the son of Iehoiada or of Barachiah however you thirst more greedily and more irrelentingly after my blood then the chafed Hart doth after the brooks of water yet when-ever you have glutted your selves with the sight of it pouout upon the ground In-stead of covering it with dust cast not this foul aspersion or slander upon me or it as if either it or I did or shall sollicit vengeance against you for the cruel indignities which ye have done or shall do either to me or to my followers when I am dead The blood of my Apostles will not speak so bad And My blood shall speak much better things for you then the blood of Abel did for his brother Cain then the blood of Zachariah whom your Fathers slew betwixt the Altar and the Temple did for the then King and the Princes or people of Iudah For my Heavenly Father hath not sent me nor will I give any Commission to my Followers or Embassadors to curse but to bless you not to wound and
present generation in my Text had crucified But so returning unto him by true Repentance he will return unto them in mercie and be as gracious and favourable to the last Generations of this miserable people as he was of old unto the first or best of their Fore-fathers For in this Case especially and in this and the like alone that Saying of our Apostle which some in our dayes most unadvisedly and impertinently mis-apply and confine to their own particular state in Grace or Gods Favour is most true The Gifts of God are without repentance That Lord and God whom they solemnly forsook hath not finally forsaken them but with unspeakable patience and long-suffering still expects their Conversion For which Christians above all others are bound to pray Convert them Good Lord unto the Knowledge and us unto the Practise of that Truth wherewith thou hast elightened our souls that our Prayers for them and for our selves may ever be acceptable in thy sight O Lord our strength and our Redeemer Amen Amen CHAP. XLIII The Second Sermon upon this Text. MATTH 23. verse 34 35 36. Wherefore Behold I send unto you Prophets and some of them ye will kill c. That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth c. Verily I say unto you All these things shall come upon this Generation 2 Chron. 24. 22. And as he was dying he said The Lord look upon it and Require it Luke 11. 51 Verily I say unto you IT that is ver 50. The blood of all the Prophets shed from the Foundation of the world shall be Required of this Generation 1. OF several Queries or Problems emergent out of these words proposed unto this Audience a year ago One and that one of greatest difficultie was How the sins of former Generations can be required of later specially in so great a distance of time as was between the death of Abel and of Zachariah and this last Generation which crucified the Lord of life the Discussion whereof is my present Task In this disquisition you will I hope dispense with me for want of a formal Division or Dichotomie because the Channel through which I am to pass is so narrow and so dangerously beset with Rocks and shelves on the right hand and on the left as there is no possibility for two to go on brest nor any room for Steerage but only Towage One passage in my Disquisition must draw another after it by one and the same direct Line For first if I should chance to say any thing which either Directly or by way of Consequence might probably inferre this Affirmative Conclusion That God doth at any time punish the children for the fathers sins or later generations for the Iniquities of former This were to contradict that Fundamental Truth which the Lord himself hath so often protested by Oath Ezek. 18. 1 2 c. And the word of the Lord came unto me again saying What mean ye that ye use this Proverb concerning the Land of Israel saying the Fathers have eaten sour grapes and the Childrens teeth are set on edge As I live saith the Lord God ye shall not have occasion any more to use this Proverb in Israel Behold all souls are mine as the soul of the Father so also the soul of the Son is mine the soul that sinneth it shall die And again verse the last I have no pleasure in the death of him that dyeth saith the Lord God wherefore turn your selves and live ye Now to contradict any Branch of these or the like Protestations or Promises would be to make shipwrack of Faith more dangerous then to rush with full sail upon a Rock of Adamant On the other hand if I should affirm any thing either directly or indirectly which might inferre any part of this Negative That God doth not visit the sins of the Fathers upon the Children or of former Generations upon later This were to strike upon a shelf no less dangerous then to dash against the former Rock directly to contradict Gods solemn Declaration in the second Commandement of His Proceedings in this Case which are no less just and equal then the former Promise Ezekiel the 18. By this you see the only safe way for passage through the straits proposed must be to find out the middle Line or Mean whether Medium Abnegationis or Participationis or in one word The difference betwixt this Negative God doth not punish the Children for the Fathers sins and the other Affirmative God visiteth the sins of the Fathers upon the Children even unto the third and fourth Generation c. 2. But in the very first setting forth or entry into this narrow Passage some here present perhaps have already discovered a shelf or sand to wit that the passage fore-cited out of the second Commandement doth better reach or fit the Case concerning Josiah his death and the calamity of his people then the present difficultie or Problem now in handling For Josiah was but the third in succession from Manasseh and dyed within fewer years then a Generation in ordinary Construction imports after his wicked Grand-father But if the blood of Zachariah the son of Jehoiada or other Prophets slain in that Age or the Age after him were required of this present Generation God doth visit the sins of Fore-fathers upon the Children after more then three or four after more then five times five Generations according to St. Matthew's account in the Genealogie of our Lord and Saviour Yet this seeming Difficulty to use the Mariners Dialect is rather an Over-fall then a shelf or at the worst but such a shelf or sand as cannot hinder our passage if we sound it by the Line or Plummet of the Sanctuary or number our Fathoms by the scale of sacred Dialect in like Cases For when it is said in the Second Commandement that God doth visit the sins of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him This is Numerus certus proincerto aut indefinito an expression or speech equivalent to that of the Prophet Amos. For three transgressions of Damascus and for four I will not turn away the punishments thereof For three transgressions of Tyrus and for four for three transgressions of Ammon and for four c. Throughout almost every third verse of the first Chapter and some part of the Second The Prophets meaning is that all the Kingdoms or several Sovereignties there mentioned by him especially Judah and Israel should certainly be punished not for three or four only but for the multitude of their continual transgressions and many of them transgressions of a high and dangerous nature Both speeches as well that in Amos as in the Second Commandement reverently to compare magna parvis are like to that of the Poet O terque quaterque beati that is most happy So that unto the third and fourth generation may imply more then seven
of quick and dead But he that by vertue of his Commission as Son of man did freely forgive all other sins did as my Text imports remit all personal offences as they only concerned himself and did not suffer the fruits or effects of these later Jews malice to come upon Jerusalems score for shedding of righteous blood It was not his Will to have any more greivously punished for being malitiously bent against him then they should otherwise have been for the unrelenting habitual bent of their malice against whomsoever it had beene set Never was bitter enmitie practised against any so little desirous of revenge or so unwilling to accuse his enemies as he was for so he protests unto the Jews which sought his life Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father there is one that accuseth you even Moses in whom ye trust John 5. v. 45. Moses though till Christ came the meekest man that had been on earth had foretold and solemnly threatned those plagues whose execution most of the Prophets had sollicited But this Great Prophet beyond all measure of meekness and patience whereof humanity so but meer humanity is capable seeks by prayer by reproof by admonitions and exhortations by all means justly possible to prevent them he often fore-warns what would be the issue of their stubbornness which he never mentions but with greif and sorrow of heart he often intimates that the most malicious murtherer amongst this people was not so desirous of his death as he was of all their lives witness his affectionate prayers seasoned with sighs and tears even whiles they plotted the execution of their long-intended mischeif against him 4. That which first moved me to make and must justifie the interpretation of these words here made is a remarkable Opposition expresly recorded in Scripture betwixt our Saviours and his Disciples desires uttered at their death for this peoples good and the cry of Abels blood and Zachariah's dying voice both solliciting vengeance from Heaven against their persecutors When they were come to the place called Calvarie they crucified him Then said Iesus Father forgive them for they know not what they do Luke 23. ver 33. This Infinite Charity notwithstanding some alwayes jealous least God should shew any token of love towards such as they mislike or Christ manifest any desire of their salvation whom they have markt for Reprobates would have restrained unto the Garrison of Souldiers that conducted him to the Cross But Reasons we have many to think or rather firmly to believe that he uttered those Prayers Indefinitely for all that either were Actors in this business or Approvers of it whether Jews or Gentiles And if both his Doctrines and Miracles whiles he lived on earth as all must acknowledge did why should not his dying Prayers in the first place respect the lost sheep of Israel Roman Souldiers they were not but Jews of the most malignant stamp which martyred St. Stephen yet after he had commended his spirit unto Iesus in near the same terms that Jesus did his unto his Father he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice Lord lay not this sin to their charge And when he had said this he fell asleep Acts 7. 60. It is no sin I hope to suppose that the Master was every way as charitable at his death as his Disciple It is requisite that he which bids us bless our persecutors should set us a more exquisite patern then we are able to express His prayers for his greatest persecutors were more fervent and unfeigned then ours can be for our dearest friends St. Stephen in thus praying for his enemies did but imitate his Master and bear witness of his loving kindness towards all But when Cain had killed Abel the voice of his blood cried unto the Lord from the earth and the cry procured a curse upon him for the earth became barren unto him and he was a fugitive and vagabond from the Land wherein he lived before Herein as St. Augustine excellently observes a Type of the Jewish Nation who having the prerogative of birth-right amongst Gods People for the like sin became fugitives and vagabonds on the face of the earth whilest the good Land which God gave unto their fathers hath been curst with barrenness and desolation for their sakes And this Cry of Abels blood against his brother God would have registred in the beginning of his book as a Proclamation against all like impious and bloody Conspiracies until the worlds end Whereby the Iews to whom the manner of Gods process with Cain was sufficiently known were condemned Ipso Facto without any further folicitation of Gods judgments then their own attempts of like practises No marvel if his punishment foreshadow theirs when as never any did so manifestly and notoriously revive his sin as this Generation here spoken of did Cain saith St. Iohn was of that wicked one and slew his brother And wherefore slew he him Because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous 1 John 3. 12. Ye are of your father the divel saith our Saviour to these Iewes and the lusts of your father ye will do he was a murtherer from the beginning Iohn 8. v. 44. And why did they go about to murther him Because he had told them the truth which he had heard of God ver 40. And as he had taught before in the third of S. John They would not receive him although he came as a light into the world because their deeds were evil Moses had foretold That the Great Prophet was to be this peoples Brother and in that they would not hearken to him they stood condemned by Moses's Sentence Deut. 18. 18. Whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name I will require it of him v. 19. Abel as pleasing God by his sacrifice and as being slain by his ungratious brother was the live Type of Christ as man whose murther by his brethren though most displeasant yet his sacrifice was most acceptable unto his God The same God which in the fourth of Genesis admonisheth Cain partly by threatning partly by promises to desist from his wicked purposes doth here in my Text as lovingly and yet as severely dehort these Jews from following his foot-steps least his punishments fall heavier upon them And they not taking warning by Cain's example to repent them of their envie and grudging against their brother the Crie not of Christs blood which they shed but of Abel's overtakes them for Christ was consecrated as the Sanctuary or place of Refuge whereto they should have fled And Abel was the Revenger of blood which did pursue them So likewise doth the Cry of Zacharias's at his death for that was quite contrary to our Saviours and St. Stephen's When he died he said The Lord look upon it and require it 2 Chron. 24. 22 The present Effect of this his dying speech compared with St. Lukes narration of Our Saviours Admonition affords the
of Syria and he went away from Jerusalem But though the Chaldeans had burnt the House of God and the Palaces of Ierusalem with fire had destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof yet the Lord doth not utterly forsake his vineyard his Church the Quire of Saints still nestles in the branches that are transplanted whose off spring within seventy years is restored unto their native soyl Jerusalem repaired the Temple re-edified and the Land of Iudah sown with the seed of man and beast After this State thus raised again from Civil Death if posterity will not believe nor bring forth better fruits then heretofore their fathers have done neither would they believe though Moses and the Prophets were raised from the dead to exhort them to repentance For this reason after their return from Babylon and re-edification of the Temple God sends no more Prophets save such as they brought with them until the fulness of time or the Third Climacterical Period of this State wherein the disease being become more desperate he sent his only Son the Heir of all things as knowing that if he could not none ever after should be able to recover it This his Son was that Lord which by his peculiar presence had brought this vine out of Egypt but after he had planted it in Iudea and let it out unto these husbandmen went into a farre Country that is he appeared not unto them as he did to Moses to Joshuah c. until in the last dayes he descended from Heaven in the true form and substance of man to receive the fruits He looked at this time especially his vineyard should had brought forth grapes but it brought forth more wild grapes then before He looked for weighty matters of the Law and behold tithing of Mint Annise and Cummin He looked for judgment mercy and faith But behold covetousness extortion pride and cruelty grapes more bitter then the grapes of Sodom Sourness it self the very leaven of Hypocrisie yet upon the first denial of such fruits as he expected he departs not from them he accuseth them not unto his Father But as they had two or three fore-warnings more remarkable then ordinary in several Generations of their Ancestors so he expects a loyal Answer at more times of fruit then one or two presenting himself to them for three years and more together at every several Passover besides other anniversary solemnities And yet at last for constant delivery of that Embassage which he had from his father they caught him and condemned him in the vineyard but carry him out of it to be crucified in Mount Calvarie And thus at length Zachariah's Prophecie against Ioash and his wicked Princes and his Imprecation at his death are fulfilled in this wicked generation they formally forsook their God when they cried We have no King but Caesar and demanding Barabbas a murtherer the son of their father the Divle they destoyed Iesus the Son of God And the Lord hath utterly forsaken them not the Temple and City only but the Inhabitants but the whole race of the Jewish Nation and hath let forth His Vineyard to us Gentiles They were so rich by his bounty that they were ashamed to acknowledge so mean a man as Our Saviour for their Lord and Owner of the Land they inhabited And as the Prophet foretold they hid their faces from him And therefore as Moses testified against them in his dying Song The Lord hides his face from them Darkness did over-spread the Land of Iudah at his Passion and the light of his countenance since that time hath never shined upon that Nation They lost Gods extraordinary Illumination by Urim and Thummim as some hold at Zachariah's death as most agree at the destruction of Salomon's Temple but now are destitute of the light of Scripture without all knowledge of Gods Word since they rejected Him which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world In the very sun-shine of the Gospel they grope like blind men that cannot see a beaten way and must so continue throughout their generations unto the worlds end until they shall unfeignedly confess the iniquity of their fathers and that they have walked contrary unto me And that I also have walked contrary unto them and have brought them into the land of their enemies Lev. 26. 40 41. As the sins of those Jews which rejected the Light of the world and solemnly revolted from their King have been thus remarkably visited upon their children that will not confess their sins in so doing nor acknowledge him whom they rejected for their expected Redeemer So were the sins of that generation which slue Zachariah visited upon this which crucified our Saviour because they neither did truly confess them but rather revive and increase them nor finally admit of his Sacrifice which was appointed for the expiation of that Prodigious Fact as of all others wherewith the City and Temple had been polluted Unless God's mercy had warded off the stroke of his justice Ierusalem it self had been made an heap of stones when King Ioash stoned Zachariah to death So had the Temple it self wherein his guiltless blood lay uncovered been covered with Dust The whole Nations plagues in rigour of justice might have been much greater at that time then they have been since Now all the mercie or mitigation of Justice which former Generations found was through the Mediation of the Son of God And seeing these later have been more refractorie to this their Mediator himself then were their fathers to his Prophets seeing they have solemnly disavowed him and bid a defiance to his Embassadors Gods mercies which had daily shrowded Ierusalem from his wrath as the hen doth her young ones from the storm leave it and her children open to his justice For Resolution of the main Point or difficulty proposed The forsaking or putting the Son of God to death is for ought I can gather no direct and positive cause of all the miseries expressed or intimated in my Text Only such a Cause of Ierusalems destruction as the Pilots absence is of shipwrack a Cause of it only in this sense that her inhabitants by forsaking him have exempted themselves from his wonted protection and God's justice which had long watched his departure from the City and Temple as Sergeants do their egress which have taken Sanctuary now attatches them when there is none to become their Surety none to intercede for mitigation of Justice none to hinder why judgments heretofore alwayes abated and oft-times altogether deferred may not be executed upon them in full measure But that their Personal Offences against their Mediator should wholly or specially procure this woful doom or come at all into the Bill of their Indictment is in my Opinion no way probable The character of his own speeches as well in my Text or elsewhere altogether disclaims this Assertion as unconsonant to the form of wholsome doctrine But may we say that albeit his blood did not augment their