together to believe it Were they drawn away with mere words And with the danger of their lives followed a poor despicable Preacher when they saw nothing that was wonderful for strange to perswade them to this worship What vain senseless imaginations are these Therefore they believed and suffered themselves to be torn in pieces rather than deny it because they saw all these things done by him and by his Preachers who were sent through the whole world to carry the benefits of our Father to mankind and to bestow the gifts of healing both on their Souls and Bodies But our Writers have not set these things down faithfully They have extolled small matters and ambitiously magnified them beyond their just proportions Why so I beseech you By what reason shall we believe any of your writings if this History of ours must be rejected In which but a few things of the many that were done are recorded by men of truth and honesty Did any God come down from Heaven and write with his own hand the stories that you believe Or is there any thing of that nature writ against ours Then you believe men and so do we Your Books were writ by men and so were ours And whatsoever you will say of ours look for the same to be retorted upon your own Will you have all things contained in your writings to be true so are all contained in ours Do you say ours are false the same we say of yours And how will you help your selves You cannot say that you saw the things that you believe no more than we But others saw them and therefore you believe them and so do we But ours were writ by rude and unlearned men and therefore not to be believed Consider if this be not an advantage to our cause and a stronger reason to conclude that these writings are stained with no lies but delivered with a simple mind ignorant how to amplifie things and so set them off with deceitful dresses As for that which follows concerning the trivial sordid stile wherein they said the Apostles writ it does not in the least render the faithfulness of their relations suspected and therefore I pass it over and omit his reply to it though I cannot well neglect this pertinent observation of Erasmus in his Preface to his Paraphrase upon S. Lukes Gospel The language says he of the Gospel is so simple and rude that if any body compare it with the History of Thucydides or Livy he will want abundance of things and be offended at as many How many things do the Evangelists pass by How many do they but just touch in two or three words In how many places do they disagree in the order of their Narration and in how many others do they seem to thwart one another These things might make a Reader less like them and not give such credit to what he reads For on the contrary they that wrote humane Histories how solicitous were they about their entrance upon their work How scrupulously did they weigh their words What care did they imploy to observe a decent order to set down nothing but what was plausible and exactly described And with what art do they endeavour to set things lively before our eyes With what pleasures do they intice and detain the minds of the Readers that they may not at all grow weary of them And yet these elaborate Monuments for the greatest part are lost and those that remain are not read with any assurance that they report nothing but the truth For who is so credulous as to believe that Titus Livius tells never a tale in his History But there are millions of men found who had rather die ten times than think there is one sentence false in the Evangelical story Is it not plain by this that it is not a business of humane power and prudence but conducted by a Divine vertue What Philosopher is there that ever had the confidence to propound such Paradoxes as these with hope to be believed That one Jesus was crucified and by his death saved mankind that he was God and Man born of a Virgin that he rose again from the dead and sits at the right hand of God the Father that he taught they were blessed men who mourned hungred and thirsted were afflicted ill-spoken of and killed for the profession of his name and that one day they should live again and see him sit in judgment to give immortality to the pious and endless pains to the ungodly What is there plausible and taking in all this And yet the humble low stile of the Gospel perswaded men of this so that thousands millions will rather forsake their lives than this plain truth which a few private unknown poor mean disciples of his delivered to the World What should move us then to distrust these records of the faithful WITNESSES of Christ which are come down to us through the hands of all Ages since so as they were delivered to them What do we see now more than our Forefathers did in Arnobius his days or those which succeeded that gives us any cause to suspect their truth Are they altered from what they were If any company of men had been so bold as to venture at such a change they would first have mended the stile no doubt and placed things in greater order and method according to the exactest rules of art But that they are untained an uncorrupted and in no material passage vary from what they were in former Ages appears by what all Christian Writers have transcribed out of them into their Books which agrees with that which we now read They are the same now that ever they were They contain a relation of those things which converted as Arnobius says the incredulous world who did not want wit nor learning no more than we but saw great reason to renounce all the fables which had been told of their Gods and to believe what they read here concerning Jesus For it is the testimony of God Almighty they evidently perceived that is recorded in those Books Which when we receive our faith will not be less divine than theirs in the first Age because we both receive the Witness of God only they saw or heard it and we read the record of what they saw and heard Which makes no considerable difference 〈◊〉 the nature of the testimony For the 〈◊〉 â—â—ny of any man standing upon aâ—â—â—â—ed record is as good an evidence 〈◊〉 he were alive in person to give it No man loses his cause when his Witnesses die if they have already given their evidence in any Court of Record And therefore there is no reason that our Lord Jesus should lose his authority among us because the Apostles his WITNESSES have left the world and so has the WITNESS of the Spirit and the Holy Ghost since that which they testified to mankind stands upon authentick record in the holy Gospel which cannot with any show of reason be
see their Departure is at hand In which regards I doubt not this Treatise will be acceptable to your Grace because it contains a Description and full Assurance of that happy Life which you shortly expect For there is nothing so reviving in our declining Age as to think that the passage out of this Life leads us not to Death but to Immortality and that it will not take away our Happiness from us but give us a purer enjoyment of it Pleasure not mixed with a mortall body but sincere and free from Grief and Sorrow For when we shall be set at liberty and delivered from this Prison we shall come thither where there is no Labour no Sighing nor Old age but a Life of perfect ease and tranquillity that breeds no trouble nor any other evill but is serene and clear in an immovable Rest and Peace Where the happy Inhabitants sweetly contemplate the nature of things and philosophize not for Popularity and the Theatre but for the finding out solid and everlasting Truth I have but translated the words of Plato * in Axiocho p. 370. or of some other Philosopher that hath borrowed his name who was much pleased in such thoughts as these though he made but uncertain guesses at that blessed state which our Lord hath so clearly revealed and so strongly demonstrated that we have reason with never-ceasing joy both in life and death to give him thanks for so great a Grace For as there is nothing beyond this that the heart of man can wish so nothing of such importance to our present Happiness in this World For which cause the Jews have thought fit to expunge those from the number of Israelites who do not believe the Immortality of the Soul and the Resurrection of the dead and to resolve that they shall have no part in the World to come though they otherwise live orderly and observe the Precepts of the Law For such men they saw opened a door to all licentiousness and could never doe so much good by any other means as they did hurt by subverting this Belief Which I have endeavoured therefore to establish by such Arguments as they were ignorant of till our Blessed Lord and Saviour appeared who as St. Matthew observes out of the Psalmist uttered things which had been kept secret from the foundation of the World Maimonides himself saith in his last Chapter of his Book concerning Kings that at the coming of Christ things hidden and profound shall be laid open and revealed to all Which is true of nothing more I have shewn then of that which is the greatest desire of all mankind immortall Life Of which though I have not treated according to the dignity of the Subject yet I am confident I have laid a good Foundation to be improved by the labours of those who have more skill and more leisure And it is a very great satisfaction to have done any thing though never so small for the honour of our ever-Blessed Lord and Master whom it is the highest glory in the world to serve in faithfulness and truth For He will not fail to reward such services with an ample recompence being a Prince so great that nothing is beyond his Power and so gracious that his Servants have reason to expect the best effects of his Good will Which may very well content us whatsoever usage we meet withall at present And should mightily excite us as St. Chrysostom often and earnestly exhorts * Homil. 87. in Matth. p. 539. neglecting the suspicions and the reproaches and the praises too of men to study this one thing alone how to be conscious to our selves of no evill which will bring us in the end both here and hereafter the greater glory The God of all Grace bless this Work to the settling and increasing this holy Faith and Resolution in all our hearts whereby we shall also obtain the sweetest foretasts of the Joys of the future State And may your Grace be blest with many of them to support the infirmities of Old age and having finished your days have an easie passage to that better Life and there receive from the Chief Pastour when he shall appear the Crown of glory which fadeth not away Which is the hearty Prayer of My Lord Your GRACE's in all dutifull Observance SY PATRICK TO THE READER I Have no other reason to give for adding one more to that heap of Books which men complain is already grown too great but the hope I have of doing some service to our Lord by making a farther search as I promised in the conclusion of the former Part of this Work into the Testimony of these Divine Witnesses concerning ETERNALL LIFE The Hope of which is the most precious Legacy the Son of God hath left us the Hindge upon which all Religion turns without which it would be the greatest Vanity as Lactantius * Lib. vi c. 9. vii 1. often speaks to obey the commands of Vertue for whose sake we must endure not onely many Labours but ofttimes sore Calamities We were born as he discourses elsewhere * Lib. vii 6. to acknowledge God the Maker of us and of the World whom we therefore acknowledge that we may worship him and therefore worship him that we may receive Immortality for a reward of our labours because his service ingages us in the greatest and therefore Immortality is bestowed on us for a recompenc◠that being made like to the Angels we may serve the Father and Lord of all for ever and be the Eternall Kingdom of God This is the Chief of all things this is the Secret of God this is the Mystery of the World to which they are strangers who following their present pleasures have addicted themselves to terrestriall and frail goods and sunk their Souls born to celestiall enjoyments into delights as deadly as they are muddy and dirty And it is the singular Priviledge of Christians as I have demonstrated to be assured of a Good so great by so many most credible Witnesses whose Testimony none can refuse but they that will be so absurd as to believe none at all The Father the Word the Holy Ghost the Water the Bloud and the Spirit declare so unanimously and so plainly that the Lord Jesus will give Eternall Life to his followers that what the Oratours said in flattery to the Athenians in the time of the Chremonidian War may in truth be said to us if we alter but one word that other things indeed are common to us with the rest of the World Athenzus in Deipnosoph L. vi p. 250. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the way that leads men to heaven is known to Christians alone Who have a manifold grace bestowed on them enjoying not onely a Promise of Eternall Life which the World never had before but that Promise attested by so many Witnesses who tell us also it is in the power of him that died for us to conferr it on us as well
may read ver 34 35 36. If they were called Gods in old time to whom the Word of God came i. e. who received commission and authority from God to be the Judges and Rulers of his people then it could be no offence much less a blasphemy for him whom God had sanctified i. e. set apart and anointed to this office of being their Lord and King to call himself the Son of God For so he was by his place and there was no need he should say any thing of the Divine nature that was in him Well then to be the Son of God and to be the Christ being but different expressions of the same thing and the word Christ signifying anointed one set apart to an high office and in its eminent sence that person who was to sustain the place of God in this world to be the King of Israel yea the Governour and Ruler of all mankind we must conclude that when the Apostle says here Jesus is the Son of God his meaning is that He is the Holy one of God the person whom he sanctified by the unction of the Holy Ghost and sent into the World to whom he hath now given all power in Heaven and in Earth that every knee should bow to him as the Sovereign Lord of the World whom we are to hear and obey and depend upon in all things For this is the stile you may observe of the Old Testament from whence you may learn the rise and original of this manner of speech which calls those Kings who derived their authority immediately from God by the name of his Sons Because when they were anointed by his order they were made what they were not before and begotten as they spoke again And being created by God to their new dignity they are therefore called his Sons The first time we meet with the phrase is in the story of the first King of Israel 1 Sam. xiii 1. where Saul is called as the words are in the Hebrew the Son of one year in his Kingdom Because there was but a year passed since the time of his unction by which he was born Gods Vicegerent and as you read x. 6. turned into another man And indeed we find this imitated in Ethnick writers who call the day their Emperors entred upon their Reign their Birth-day So we read in Spartianus that Adrian being informed by Letters that Trajan had named him for his Successor caused the birth-day of his adoption to be celebrated And two days after hearing of his death he ordered they should keep the birth-day of his Empire * Natalem imperii instituit celebrandum But I do not intend to launch out of the holy story where we find this more plainly delivered in the History of the succeeding Kings of Israel For when the Philistins the Moabites the Syrians the Ammonites and other neighbouring People with their Princes conspired after they had been conquered by David against the Lord and against his anointed resolving to cast off their yoke the Psalmist shews Psal 2. how vain and idle their attempt would prove because God had appointed him whom he sent a Prophet to anoint to be his King This decree of God he averrs and openly declares ver 6 7. that the Lord said unto him Thou art my Son this day i. e. when he anointed him I have begotten thee So that to rise against him was to war with God Almighty whose Son that is Vicegerent he was in those Countries And therefore if they were well advised he exhorts them all to go and kiss the Son ver 12. i. e. submit themselves by that token of humble subjection to him who had his Authority immediately from God Nay was his first-born the most eminent Prince that is that ever he made lxxxix Psal 27. And therefore he was the prime type of our Lord Christ to whom these words are applied because he was the Son of David that great King who was to reign over them for ever as the Angel said i. Luke 33. And if you pass from hence to the next King Solomon who had a particular unction also and in whose reign was prefigured the glorious Kingdom of our Saviour you will find that God says by a Prophet concerning him I will be his Father and he shall be my Son 2 Sam. vii 14. Which words are a promise to make Solomon King and settle him on the Throne of his Father David So He understood it as appears by the speech which David made not long before his death to all the great men of his Kingdom 1 Chron. xxviii where he tells them ver 4. that as Jesse had many Sons Yet God liked him only to make him King over all Israel So of the many Sons which the Lord had given him ver 5. He had chosen Solomon to sit upon the Throne of the Kingdom of the Lord. As is evident saith he from those words of God spoken by Nathan ver 6. I have chosen him to be my SON and I will be hit FATHER i. e. made choice of him to be King of Israel in thy room and as I have been to thee so I will be to him Thus Solomon one would think interpreted these words when he prays God who had made good one part of his promise to perform the other also 2 Chron. i. 8 9. Thou hast shewed great mercy unto David my Father and hast made me reign in his stead as much as to say made me thy Son now O Lord God let thy promise unto my Father be established that is of being a Father to me now that I am become thy son and set by thee over a people like the dust of the Earth in multitude By this time I suppose it will be no wonder to any intelligent person that these Kings are called the Sons of God who did not only govern in that Country which was called it is well known God's land and the inhabitants whereof were his peculiar people but were appointed by his special direction and anointed with his holy oil lxxxix Psal 20. and had as it were their being and birth from God who promoted them to sit upon his Throne and to be Kings for the Lord God as you read 2 Chron. ix 8. so that the Kingdom it self is called in that Book the Kingdom of the Lord xiii 8. And the Judges also in the Courts of that Kingdom are said to exercise the Judgment of the Lord and not of man xix 6. that is to sit there in God's stead to do men justice And because of this great power and trust committed to them by him are called as you heard lxxxii Psal 1 6. Gods and the children of the most High whose deputies they were and for whom they judged And therefore it is the less wonder that when this Great Prince came among them to whom all judgment is committed and who hath all power in Heaven and in Earth and is Lord of all and appointed by God
it again You remember what S. Peter says in the place often cited already 2 i. 17. that our Lord by the former voice from Heaven received honour and glory from God the Father and there is as much cause to think that in this there was the same design to do him honour by a declaration of the glory he should shortly receive at the right hand of God The very connexion of these words with the foregoing will not let us expound them otherwise For having told his Disciples the Son of man should shortly be glorified but first he must glorifie God by his passion and then he doubted not but God would glorifie him with himself as he speaks xiii 32. that is by the very same means glorifie both himself and his Son who had glorified him Yes says God himself from Heaven I have both glorified my Name by what he had done for Jesus and by him and will glorifie it again by that which remained still to be done And indeed 1. it did him a great honour that God was pleased to return any answer to him who had before called himself his Son x. 36. and had just now addressed himself to him as his Father calling upon him twice by this Name Father save me from this hour ver 27. Father glorifie thy Name ver 28. It was as much as to say He owned the relation allowed his pretences and intended to justifie them more and more by his Divine approbation For 2. the Answer it self is a plain promise of the honour he would confer upon him hereafter by his Resurrection and Exaltation when he again glorified himself by glorifying the Lord Jesas You read expresly in the foregoing Chapter that the Glory he had gotten before was by glorifying of his Son for he says xi 4. the sickness of Lazarus was for the glory of God that the Son of God might be glorified thereby And therefore when he says he will glorifie himself again the meaning is that as they had seen his glory xi 40. in the raising of Lazarus from the dead and in all the other miraculous works which Jesus had done for which the people gave him glory v. Luke 26. vii 16. xix 37. So he would glorifie himself more by the Resurrection of Jesus himself from the dead and by his Exaltation to an Heavenly Kingdom For it was the working of the might of his power as the Apostle S. Paul speaks i. Ephes 19. which he wrought in Christ when the Father of glory raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the Heavenly places far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come Now he glorified his Son Jesus indeed as S. Peter speaks iii. Acts 13. and gave him a name which is above every name that every knee should bow to him and every tongue confess him to be the Lord but it was to the glory of God the Father as S. Paul tells us expresly ii Philip. 11. Hereby he glorified his own name as by this voice from Heaven he said he would whose power goodness and wisdom will be for ever magnified and celebrated with the highest praises by the whole Christian Church for setting such a glorious Prince over them who is not ashamed to call them Brethren and yet hath all things put in subjection under his feet that he may protect succour and bless them here and eternally Now by making this promise to the Lord Jesus of glorifying himself by glorifying him in this manner He plainly bare witness to him that he was what he pretended to be very dear to him his only begotten Son and no deceiver as they falsely and blasphemously said who were loth to be governed by him They ought presently to have glorified God by honouring his Son and acknowledging him for their Lord and Master who had such power with God already that he would give him whatsoever he askt xi John 22. and was shortly to receive greater even all power in Heaven and in Earth xvii 1 2. For this voice you may observe was uttered at such a time and so loud that the people who stood by heard it ver 29. Those who were at some distance indeed hearing only the sound thought it had been a clap of thunder but they who were nearer heard it so distinctly that they were of opinion an Angel spake to him God that is by the Ministry of an Angel For what is said in one place of Scripture to be done by Angels who are his principal servants is in another said to be done by God As the Angel of the Lord we read vii Acts 30. appeared to Moses in the bush and in the next verse it is the voice of the Lord which from thence is said to come to him In like manner the Angel is said ver 38. to speak with him in mount Sinai where we are told in the book of Exodus xix 20. the Lord came down and called Moses up to the top of the Mount and there spake to him as here he did to our Saviour Who tells the people it was not for his sake that God spake now to him it was for theirs whom he would have to know that when he was lifted up from the Earth by hanging upon the Cross which was a step contrary to all mens opinion to his Exaltation in the Heavens he would draw all men to him bring even the Gentile world into subjection to him and bow their hearts to acknowledge his Divine authority which the Jews opposed He needed no further confirmation of this truth himself who knew how dear he was to God and that he would glorifie his Name in him but that his Disciples might be more confident of it and the people more inclined to believe it when they heard it preached God spake the very same now in the ears of a great many which he had done before to him and a few besides in the former voices from Heaven It is true indeed He is not called here Gods beloved Son in express terms as he is in the other places But this is so plainly supposed and strongly inferr'd as I said from the voice which now spake that it puts the matter out of doubt as much as the former If he had falsely and proudly laid claim to this high relation to God whom he calls his Father we may be confident God would never have honoured him with such an answer but either have been silent or said the quite contrary telling him before all the company that he would not glorifie himself by preferring but by putting to shame such an one as he who thus arrogantly took upon him to be the Son of God It is contrary to all reason to think that God would stoop to seek the glory of any person as our Saviour expresses the honour he had done him viii John 50. but one who
others are said to have seen God who beheld some very bright appearance an extraordinary light shining before their eyes which excelled all that ever they had seen or could imagine and was the token of the Divine presence Thus Moses was afraid to look upon God iii. Exod. 6. and the Elders of Israel are said to see the God of Israel xxiv 20. which places Maimonides thinks are to be understood of the Vision of God with the eyes of the mind But the Text is plainly against him which tells us there was a visible appearance of some unusual astonishing brightness And therefore he confesses that if any man do conceive those words are to be interpreted of some created light as he speaks * More Nevoch Part. 1. cap. 5. and many other places that is the visible apparition of a Divine Majesty or of an Angel there is no danger in such an apprehension And indeed no man can seriously read the Books of Moses but he will see plainly they speak of a sensible glory which was exceeding dazling and sometimes too great for the weak eyes of men to behold I have described it before when I told you it was nothing else but a flaming light which shone from that amazing devouring Fire which appeared in the cloud to the children of Israel Thus Abarbanel expounds that place I mentioned before xvi Exod. 7. In the morning then ye shall see the glory of the Lord. Which is not to be understood of the providing them bread or flesh in an extraordinary manner but of the Fire which appeared to all the people to reprove and punish them for their murmurings And so Lyra says it was an unusual refulgent brightness or lightning representing the Divine power ready to chastise them for their mutiny against his servants And it is very common in the New Testament to cal◠such a great splendour by the name of glory As the shining of Moses his face i◠called by S. Paul 2 Cor. iii. 7. the glory 〈◊〉 his countenance And in the same stile he◠speaks of the light of the Heavenly bodies when he says 1 Cor. xv 41. There is on◠glory of the Sun another glory of the Moon and another glory of the Stars for one Star differeth from another Star in glory that is in the brightness and splendour of its light Such a glory it was that now S. Steven beheld but far more splendid more pure and illustrious than the light of the Sun or any other that has been mentioned which was a representation of the presence of the Divine Majesty who used in this manner to make men sensible of his transcendent invisible glory And there in the Divine presence he saw our Lord in the most high and honourable place next to God the Father himself For that 's the meaning of his appearing at the right hand of God or of that great glory he saw in the Heavens the right hand being the principal place belonging to the Heir of the Crown when he appears together with the King his Father And therefore the Divine writer to the Hebrews says there never was any Angel seen there They only stand or minister before God or before his Throne but to which of them did he say at any time Sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy foot-stool i. Hebr. 13. This is the prerogative of Christ alone the great King the Heir of all things whose glory the Psalmist describes in that place cx Psal 1. from whence these words are cited that is prophecies of his Kingly power in the Heavens as S. Paul clearly expounds this phrase of sitting at Gods right hand 1 Cor. xv 25. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet He is a King and he reigns and he hath a Throne i. Hebr. 8. but when he is compared with God the Father Almighty the fountain of all power and authority and when he appears together with him to show that he reigns under him and for him he is represented as sitting at the right hand of God or the right hand of the Throne of God For so his Kingly power is expressed in other places He is set down on the right hand of the Throne of the Majesty in the Heavens Hebr. viii 1. xii 2. that is He reigns together with God the Father in the Celestial glory For the throne of God signifying in the Scripture phrase as the forenamed Maimonides observes that place where God's Majesty manifests it self in a visible splendour and glory the sitting of our Saviour at the right hand of that Throne or that glory denotes nothing else but his being seated in the highest honour that can be given to any one in the Heavenly places next in greatness power and majesty to God himself under whom he is the King of Angels and Men and all Creatures There was nothing of which this holy Martyr was more assured To whom this Heavenly King appeared not in his usual posture of sitting at God's right hand as one possessed of his royal power but standing there as if he was ministring in the Heavenly Sanctuary in the quality of a royal high-Priest for that was the posture of those that ministred in the Temple cxxxiv. Psal 1. for the comfort of all Christian people and of himself especially or rather as ready to come to take vengeance of those implacable enemies who had killed him and now persecuted his servants which was a notable instance of his royal power at God's right hand For there the Psalmist says he must reign till he hath subdued all those that oppose his authority and troden them under his feet And as for the second enquiry how he could know this to be Jesus whom he saw in this Heavenly Majesty It is easily resolved that He appeared to him with such a countenance as he had here upon Earth only more shining and bright as being now in the glory of the Father And so he tells the Jews I see the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God That very person he means who used to call himself the Son of man whom you crucified and dishonourably treated I now see so exalted that I had rather die as he did than not confess him to be the Son of God as he said he was when he died This is the first testimony which was given to this truth by the WORD Who bore witness in a most illustrious manner to himself when he appeared thus to a person of the greatest credit in the Divine glory and in the highest place of Celestial dignity as the King of Heaven that is and risen up from his Throne as if he was coming to be avenged of his adversaries to succour all his servants and to welcome this Martyr into glory with himself So S. Steven verily thought for he resigns up his Soul to Jesus with the same confidence and almost in the same words that Jesus gave up his to God the
when he had further considered of the business and was increased in strength He even confounded the Jews that were at Damascus proving that this is very Christ ix Acts 22. So mightily did he convince them that they had no Answer wherewith to encounter his Arguments but only the Sword and therefore consulted ver 23. to kill him and take him out of the way who as long as he lived they saw would be the greatest witness unto Jesus But all these dangers he undervalued he ran innumerable hazards made strange adventures and indured matchless troubles that he might give testimony to Jesus who had shown himself to him to be the Lord of all Nay though he was told at his first setting out how great things he must suffer for his Names sake ix 16. he was nothing at all dismayed nor in the least discouraged having seen the bright Majesty of Jesus so clearly that flames themselves could not make him deny it no nor cease to preach it So great was the force of this glorious appearance of our Lord to him whereby he testified his own power and greatness that when S. Paul was actually fallen into the hands of his bloudy enemies and made a prisoner in order to his execution He had nothing of greater note to alledge for himself by which to justifie his preaching Jesus to be the Son of God than this that he had seen that Just one and heard the voice of his mouth for no other end but this That he should be his witness unto all men of what he had seen and heard xxii Acts 14 15. And as this was the best plea he had when he was to make his defence in that popular tumult so it was the thing that convinced the Apostles themselves that he was become a disciple For they doubted of it at first when he came to Jerusalem and were afraid to associate themselves with him till Barnabas told them how he had seen the Lord in the way and that he had spoken to him and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus ix 27. When he came also to answer for himself before Agrippa a Prince of great understanding and well versed in the Jewish Religion still he stands upon this that He who thought himself bound in conscience to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth whose servants he procured to be imprisoned banished and put to death was met by this very Jesus in the way to Damascus when he was going with Commission to do the same there that he had done at Jerusalem saw his exceeding great and incomparable glory was severely rebuked by him for his rage against his disciples and then received a Commission from him to act in his name and to preach against the former all which was so evident that he durst not be disobedient to the Heavenly Vision but had ever since called upon both Jews and Gentiles to repent and believe in Jesus though he had been crucified for it was the Mind of all the Prophets and Moses that their Christ should suffer and then be the first that should rise from the dead and shew light to the people and to the Gentiles This is the substance of his Apology in the xxvi Acts from which place we may learn two things which are very considerable First that when our Lord appeared to S. Paul he had a great deal of discourse with him and did not say so little as only those words I am Jesus whom thou persecutest c. but added those words which follow ver 16 17 18. Rise and stand upon thy feet for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose to make thee a Minister and a Witness both of these things which thou hast seen and of those in the which I will appear unto thee delivering thee from the people and the Gentiles unto whom now I send thee to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me The Divine writers are wont to be very brief in their Relations and to mention only the principal things which were said and done leaving out the rest which perhaps they set down upon some other occasion And secondly in these words it is observable that he tells him he must be a witness not only of the things which he had seen now in the way to Damascus but of those in which he intended to appear unto him Which clearly intimates that there were other apparitions of the Lord Jesus unto him besides this Some of them we find recorded in this History of the Acts and other parts of the holy Book And a second sight which he had of our Lord was at Jerusalem as he was praying in the Temple When he fell into an ecstasie or rapture as he relates himself presently after the mention of the former xxii Acts 17. and saw him bidding him make haste away from that City where he was not like to do any good for they would not receive his testimony concerning him This was one of the times as some great men have thought when he was carried up to Heaven 2 Cor. xii 2. And again our Lord appeared to him the night after he had been questioned by the Council bidding him be of good chear for he should bear witness of him at Rome as he had done at Jerusalem xxiii 11. And to omit that apparition to him in a night Vision xviii 9. and the revelations which it is like were made to him in Arabia presently after his conversion He was caught up again into Paradise and there had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Visions as well as Revelations of the Lord 2 Cor. xii 1. When this was it is uncertain But there are persons of great note who imagine that when the Church of Antioch laid hands on him xiii Acts 3. not to ordain him an Apostle for so he was made by Jesus Christ himself but to send him out to exercise his Apostleship towards the Gentiles to which he had particularly appointed him then our Lord vouchsafed to lift him up into Heaven and to give him new Revelations For there could be no time more fit for it than this when he was to engage in a dangerous war against the whole Idolatrous world Then he was armed with an extraordinary resolution by conversation with Angels in the other world Where he heard things unutterable and was confirmed no doubt in the belief of the glory of the Lord Jesus by whose power he was thus transported and whom it is most likely he then again saw shining as the Sun among those stars of light in that Orb to which he was carried But this he speaks of so sparingly himself that I ought to pass it over as fast as he does The First is the chiefest and greatest evidence of all which he most depended on
that he was the Son of God the King of glory able to reward his patient servants and moreover sent Letters by him to several Churches of the Saints testifying the very same things which He made him see and hear in several visions They are recorded in that Book which tells us in the very first words of it that it is the Revelation of Jesus Christ which he sent and signified by the Ministery of his Angel to his servant John Who had already born record so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be rendred ver 2. of the WORD of God and of the testimony of Jesus and of all things that he saw Had declared that is in his Gospel Jesus to be the WORD of God and made known that which he testified to be Gods will concerning men together with all the evidences by Miracles and other ways which he had seen of the truth of that which Jesus testified There could not be a fitter person than he who perhaps also was the only Apostle now remaining in the world to hold communication with this WORD of God and receive new revelations from Jesus He being at this time likewise banished and confined to the Isle which is called Patmos ver 9. for the cause now named that is for the Word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ In this lonesome place separated from the rest of the Earth our Lord opened Heaven to him and shewed him the glory which he had there For he fell into a rapture on the Lords day ver 10. and heard one speak behind him with a voice as loud as a trumpet saying I am before and after all things that is God blessed for ever Write what thou seest in a Book and send it to the seven Churches which are in Asia whose names are there expressed ver 11. Whereupon he turn'd about to see whence this voice came and then he beheld in the midst of seven golden Candlesticks representing those Churches a very glorious person appearing in the most royal majesty and power He did not ask him as S. Paul did who he was for he had been long acquainted heretofore with that countenance and knew him perfectly well to be our blessed Saviour Who by his very habit wherein he appeared declared himself to be as he had said the Lord of all who had no superiour nor any second in that Kingdom which God the Father had given him but disposed all things according to the sole pleasure of his will For he beheld him clothed with a garment down to the foot and girt about the paps with a golden girdle c. ver 13 14 15 16. He saw that is as Irenaeus truly expresses it L. 4. cap. 37. Sacerdotalem gloriosum regni ejus adventum him appear in his Priestly and glorious Kingdom For a long Robe and a golden Girdle belonged both to Kings and to the High-Priest in the Jewish Nation And all the rest of the description it were easie to show is a plain representation of a person shining in the glory of God the Father and invested with such an irresistible power in the Heavens as might justy make all his Friends rejoyce who acknowledged him to be the Son of God most high and all his Enemies quake and tremble who opposed his sovereign Authority In short so glorious was the sight that S. John himself was not able to bear it but when he saw him fell at his feet as dead ver 17. till the WORD as Irenaeus speaks in the same place on whose breast he had reposed himself at his last Supper revived and comforted him with these gracious words Fear not I am the first and the last I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore Amen and have the keys of Hell and of Death As much as to say Thou wast not deceived when thou thoughtest thou saw the Son of man appear to thee It is I indeed therefore be not so afraid though now thou beholdest me in such Heavenly Majesty and Divine glory for thou oughtest rather to rejoyce to think that I am the eternal God I whom thou knewest when I lived upon Earth and whom thou sawest shamefully put to death am now alive as thou seest also never to die any more and am intrusted with a power to rescue you from death and raise you out of your graves It would be too long if I should tell you all that he says in his Letters to those Churches to assert his title to the Name of the Son of God which he expresly takes to himself in one of them ii Rev. 18. and to declare his royal power which he exercises in all the world especially in his Church the house of the living God where he hath such an absolute authority expressed by having the keys of the house of David c. iii. 7. that none can contradict him either by preserving any man in the Divine favour if he reject him or by excluding any man from it if he receive him It may suffice to observe these two things First that there is not one of those Letters but it begins with some such description of our Saviour's sovereign Majesty as this now mentioned For the character he had given of himself in the first Chapter is again repeated by parts in the following messages to the Churches Where he sometimes calls himself He that walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks ii 1. that is inspects and governs them Sometime the first and the last which was dead and is alive ver 8. that is the Lord God who can raise him from the dead who parts with his life for me And to name no more he calls himself ver 12. He that hath the sharp sword with two edges to cut in pieces either them or their enemies according as they deserved of him And indeed it being the office of a King which is the second thing to be observed or a supreme Governour to punish offenders and to reward vertuous persons he constantly assumes both these powers to himself in every one of these seven Letters telling them what evil should befall them from his hand if they did not amend and what blessings he would bestow upon them if they did overcome Which is a plain declaration of his Regal power and authority which he now hath at the right hand of the Throne of God There S. John saw him in a second Vision as Irenaeus calls it v. Rev. 6. where he appears in such power with God that none hath the like For there was a majesty represented to the Apostle sitting on a Throne with a Book in his right hand ver 1. which none could open or read or so much as look into And then behold this Lamb of God who had been slain comes and appears in the midst of the Throne being the Lyon of the Tribe of Judah as one of the Elders calls him ver 5. that royal person whom
and ever Which was accomplished also with very great speed as he saw represented by an Angel which appeared flying in the midst of Heaven xiv 6. Having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the Earth That motion of flying seems to signifie the haste which the great Ministers of Christ made who are compared in this book to Angels to publish his Gospel to the world Which had mighty success because it came with authority from Heaven as is represented by the Angels flying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the midst of the air between Heaven and Earth to denote something he had in hand which was decreed above and to be done here below The greatest powers on Earth indeed set themselves against it and made war with the Lamb xvii 14. that is persecuted Christianity But he foretells his conquests even over these Kingdoms who were such furious enemies as to seek to destroy his Religion For which he gives only these two reasons because God had made him Lord of Lords and King of Kings and because those who followed him were such choice persons that their patient constant perseverance in his service to which he had called them helpt to overcome his and their Enemies and to bring them in subjection to him I can think of nothing that can be objected against what hath been said but two things which deserve briefly to be considered One of them concerns this last particular now handled and the other seems to cross all that hath been delivered in this Chapter Against what hath now been alledged from the Revelations it may be objected that this Book of Visions was doubted of among some of the ancient Christians To which the Answer is very obvious That there was a particular reason why this Book did not always go along with the rest into every bodies hands and by that means being not so generally known was afterward questioned because the making of it as publick as the Christian doctrine might have too much incensed the power of the Roman Empire whose downfall is here so plainly predicted Yet it was not kept so private but that it is cited very early both as a Divine Book and as the writing of S. John the Apostle by those who deserve to be believed Justin Martyr had that opinion of it and so had Irenaeus as I have already said and Theophilus Antiochenus and Origen especially S. Cyprian who I have observed produces testimonies out of no book of the New Testament so oft as this From whence he encourages Christians to follow their Master and all that worthy company who had hazarded their lives for him It being the peculiar glory saith he * De Exhort Martyr of our time that whereas ancient examples might be numbred now there is such an exuberant abundance of vertue and faith that Christian Martyrs cannot So the Revelation witnesses I beheld and lo a great multitude which no man could number of all nations and kindred and people and tongues stood before the Throne and before the Lamb with white robes and palms in their hands vii 9. And these he was told are they which came out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the bloud of the Lamb. I shall not produce the words of any of the rest nor of divers others who without any manner of doubting pronounce this to be the Revelation of the WORD of God to his servant John But pass to the other thing which may be alledged to the prejudice of the whole foregoing discourse For I produce nothing some may say but the testimony which one gives of himself which all confess to be of no validity This WORD of God himself saith so as this very Apostle hath recorded v. John 31. If I bear witness of my self my witness is not true And yet what is all that S. Steven saw or that he spake to S. Paul and S. John but his witness of himself I answer in his own words also which you read in another place of that Gospel viii 14. where the Pharisees objecting to him his own concession ver 13. that a mans testimony to himself is nothing worth he seems to revoke but in truth only explains it by telling them in terms quite contrary though I bear record of my self my record is true The former words are not so to be understood as if what a man says of himself were always false or not to be regarded when he hath a concurrent testimony from others no it may be true though it will perswade no body else to believe it without other evidence That 's all our Saviour means in the Fifth Chapter if he had alone born witness to himself and there had been no other testimony given him it had not been true that is not a valid unexceptionable testimony by which he might demand credit from them So the word true is used viii John 17. in the sence of the Law which required two or three witnesses for the establishing or setling any thing in question They had no reason to believe he was Gods Son but might still have disputed it if he had been the only person that said so and could have brought no other to witness for him And yet notwithstanding He tells them here that even in this case his testimony of himself is true as truth is opposed to falshood though it wanted that truth which was necessary to make it a legal testimony That is though it could not have passed in Law nor stopt the mouth of gainsayers because it was a single testimony and the Law required more than one yet it would have had nothing of a lie in it but his words would have been perfectly true when he affirmed himself to be the Son of God But 〈◊〉 was not his case He alone did not bea◠witness to himself but there were others beside him who bare witness of him and said the same thing that he did as he shows v. John 32 33 36 c. and said it before he assumed this name to himself And therefore his testimony which single would have had no strength being joyned to the other is of great force and ought to be regarded He did not desire to be received merely because he said he was the Son of God though he ought not to be accounted a liar for saying so alone no he referred them to other proof of that truth But when they had heard and considered them then there was reason they should hear what he affirmed concerning himself and not think the worse of him because he spake those words which were no other than the very words of the Father whereby he bare witness to him So he tells them in the viii John 17 18. It is written in your Law that the testimony of two men is true I am one that bear witness of my self and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me That is you have no reason to disparage my
else but some very splendid body a bright shining Light formed by the Spirit of God which came down from above just as a Dove with wings spread is observed to do and lighted upon our Saviours head These three last phrases are remarkable For when the Evangelists say it came down they speak in the constant stile of the holy language concerning the appearance of the Majesty of God xix Exod. 11 20. Of whom as Maimonides adds the Scripture speaks in the same manner when it describes his bestowing any gifts or vouchlasing any special token of his favour upon men For we * Mors Novoch Part. 1. Cap. 10. being in a low condition in respect of him who is the most high not in respect of place but of his essence majesty and power whensoever He is pleased to give wisdom to any one or to pour down the gift of prophecy upon him that abode of the spirit of prophecy or the habitation of the majesty and presence of God in any place is called his COMING DOWN and the taking away of prophecy or the recession of the Divine majesty is called his GOING UP For which he cites xi Numb 17. xxxv Gen. 13. In this language the Holy writers of the New Testament here speak who knew very well that the Divine Spirit is every where and doth not move from place to place but say it came down because there was an outward visible appearance of a great glory which indeed descended from above and declared him on whom such a majesty dwelt to be filled with the gifts of wisdom and prophecie and all other powers of the Holy Ghost And in the same manner they express the unexpected communication of Divine gifts to the Gentiles on whom the Holy Ghost fell or came down as they heard the word x. Acts 45. xi 15. That is there was a sensible token of the Divine presence among them though no visible majesty descended for they heard them speak with tongues and magnifie God But here there were both all the gifts of the Holy Ghost bestowed and also such a visible glorious Majesty as there was at the giving of the Law which not only came down but light upon our Saviour as that glory did on the top of mount Sinai xix Exod. 18 20. This was a thing as you shall hear which was never known before that the glory of the Lord should come and rest upon any person It could denote him to be no less than the Holy one of God From whom as from Gods most holy place he would hereafter communicate all his blessings to men And the more fully to express this it is very observable that the glory which now appeared came down as a Dove doth which is the very manner wherein R. Solomon describes the descent of the Divine majesty in former times The Throne of God saith he upon those words i. Gen. 2. The Spirit of God moved c. stood in the air and hovered over the face of the waters by the Spirit of his mouth who is most blessed and by his Word just AS A DOVE stretches her wings over her Nest For it is not certain whether this glorious appearance had the form of a Dove or only descended in the same manner as a Dove doth when it came upon our Saviour and encircled his head But that there was such a glorious Majesty appeared and lighted on him ought not to seem incredible to any man that believes the Holy Books of the Old Testament as Origen * Lib. 1. shows against Celsus who foolishly brings in a Jew speaking against this apparition If he had made an Epicuraean saith He deride this report there had been some congruity in it but it is ridiculous to pin such words upon a Jew who believes things altogether as strange nay far more wonderful To pass by what we read that God said to Adam Noah Abraham and others what doth he think concerning Ezekiel who says that the Heavens were opened and he saw Visions of God i. 1. and ver 28. That this was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And the same Isaiah reports concerning himself I saw the Lord sitting upon a Throne c. vi 1. Which of these are more to be credited Ezekiel who says the Heavens were opened c. and Isaiah who writes that he saw the Lord c. or Jesus who says that the Heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a Dove and lighting upon him This is enough to stop the mouth of any Jew especially since the power of Jesus as Origen proceeds not only then when he was on earth far excelled theirs but still remains now that he is in Heaven for the conversion and betterment of those who by him believe in God And as for others He tells Celsus that all those who admit Providence confess that God hath sometimes forewarned men in their sleep of things which much concerned their safety And therefore it is no such strange thing if that power which figures the mind in a dream should impress the same or the like form upon it when a man is awake and represent things as sensibly to him as if he saw them with his eyes and heard them with his ears And why that should not be as really seen if God please which is represented to a man in his imagination no body can give any reason As for that which Celsus objects that the Gospel never tells us our Saviour was wont to mention this and appeal to it in his preaching to the people He tells him that he did not mind how unseemly it was for our Saviour to divulge himself what was seen and heard at Jordan who forbad his Disciples to publish that which they beheld and heard on the holy Mount There was a fit time for the open proclaiming of both by others not by himself For the manners of our Saviour were far from that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain ostentation and much talk of himself which such a man as Celsus might be guilty of He chose by his works rather than by his words to tell them that he was the Christ Which made the Jews say How long dost thou hold us in suspence If thou be the Christ tell us plainly x. John 24. So he did but it was by that which was more convincing than his testimony of himself could then be I told you and ye believed not the works that I do in my Fathers name they bear witness of me ver 25. That one work which he had wrought just before was so miraculous that the like had not been heard of since the world began ix 32. For he had opened the eyes of a man who was born blind as they themselves could not deny for the mans Parents testified that he could never see till now and he affirmed it was Jesus who had given him his sight If they had not been blinder than He this
that he had reason to say xi Luke 20. If I by the finger of God cast out Devils no doubt the KINGDOM of God is come upon you And secondly over and above this he forgave mens sins and remitted their offences by releasing many from the punishment of them v. Luke 20. which every one knows is a power wherewith only Kings and Sovereign Princes are invested And thirdly He raised a man from the dead and released him even from the prison of the grave Which certainly was the act of a King and of that King who had power over all flesh So Martha her self understood it when she makes it all one to raise the dead and to be that King whom God promised to send them For when our Saviour saith to her I am the resurrection and the life c. believest thou this Her answer follows in these terms Yea Lord I believe that thou art the CHRIST the Son of God which should come into the world xi John 27. And lastly the very preaching the mind of God and publishing the Gospel of the Kingdom with such authority as he did was the part of a King For so he interprets the word Kingdom when he stood before Pilate xviii John 37. Where you may learn that all this is not the mere collection of reason from the observations we make as we read the Holy story but that which our Lord himself affirms in express words when he was examined by Pilate upon this very point For our Lord seeming to grant that he had a Kingdom though not of this world but Heavenly ver 36. the Governour asks him again Art thou a KING then To which he answers him roundly Thou sayest that I am a KING i.e. yes I am it is as thou sayest So the rest of the Evangelists report his Answer Thou sayest it xxvii Matth. 11. xv Mark 2. xxiii Luke 3. which is as much in their Language as to say it is so thou hast said right I am a King This is that GOOD CONFESSION which he witnessed before Pontius Pilate which the Apostle propounds to Timothy's imitation 1 Tim. vi 13. He now openly owned with the danger of his life that as mean as he appeared at present he was appointed by God to be his Vicegerent the King of the world which he had manifested by several acts of Kingly power ever since he was anointed with the Holy Ghost And he had said the same before when he was brought to answer for himself in the chief Council of the Jews Where the High Priest asked him and said unto him Art thou the Christ the Son of the Blessed And Jesus said I am xiv Mark 61 62. Which words I am are the plain interpretation of the other phrases in the rest of the Evangelists Thou hast said xxvi Matth. 64. and ye say that I am xxii Luke 70. where you read ver 71. that hearing this confession they forbare to produce any more witnesses and condemned him out of his own mouth That is they passed the sentence of death upon him as a counterfeit so they pretended of that royal Prophet whom they expected to come into the world Under this character they delivered him to Pilate hoping that he would likewise condemn him for Treason against Caesar whose authority they would have him believe our Saviour subverted by saying He himself was CHRIST a King xxiii Luke 2. So the whole multitude of his Disciples had a little before proclaimed him though not such a King as would do Caesar any harm when they met him at the foot of the Mount of Olives and with great joy praised God for all the mighty works they had seen saying Blessed be the KING that cometh in the name of the Lord peace in Heaven and glory in the highest that is let Heaven prosper his Kingdom till it be made most glorious xix Luke 38. There needs no more be said to shew that he was made a King by this Unction of the Holy Ghost though the full possession of his Kingdom and exercise of his whole royal power he did not attain till he was advanced to his Throne of glory in the Heavens when he received from the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost to bestow upon others ii Acts 33. and poured it down as an holy Oil on their heads to create them Ministers in his Kingdom That was a further witness to our Saviour as I should now proceed to show you but that it may be fit before I part with this to take notice that this testimony which the HOLY GHOST now gave to him when it anointed him at his Baptism was so remarkable that Mahomet hath not forgot to leave a remembrance of it in his Alcoran Where he brings in God speaking after this manner * Vid. Seld. de Synedr Lib. 2. C. 4. n. 4. We have already sent a Book i. e. the Law to Moses and afterward we sent the Prophets and to Jesus the Son of Mary we have sent most known or eminent vertues and we gave him a TESTIMONY and strengthened him with the HOLY GHOST In which words a great Paraphrast of theirs upon the Alcoran by known vertues or powers given to our Saviour understands the gift of working miracles as opening the eyes of the blind cleansing lepers and raising the dead Though by the Holy Ghost they generally understand no more than the Angel Gabriel who for the manifestation of him as that Paraphrast speaks was sent a-long with him as his companion whithersoever he went Which notion I imagine they drew out of the Jewish writers who say that such glorious apparitions as that at Christ's baptism were made by the ministry of Angels who were the Chariot of God in which he was said to come down to men But whatsoever Mahomets meaning was when he says God strengthened him with the Holy Ghost it is an open acknowledgment of that which the Divine writers have recorded which was so famous and notorious that Infidels could not deny it Nay some of that false Prophets followers have said expresly that the Holy-Ghost is no Creature Vid. Ib. pag. 127. but hath a singular production proper to it self For it is not a spirit after the manner of other spirits because it is the spirit of God The spirit of a Man is a Creature but the spirit of God is not It was more than an Angelical presence then that was in our Saviour of whose birth indeed the Angel Gabriel brought the news to his Mother but he did not pretend that she should conceive by his power no he sayes expresly The HOLY GHOST shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshaddow thee And therefore at his new-birth as I may call it to the office of a King it was the very same power of the highest which in a visible manner then overshaddowed him and remained on him to testify that he was as the Angel said the Son of God To conclude this the Angelical
judgment but were carried away merely with the sound of seemingly mystical words which they could never make any sober person understand the sence of Whereas on the contrary the words of our Saviour are not only intelligible but penetrate into the very heart and soul of him that reads them Every man bears witness to most of them in his own Conscience And the rest are such as plainly aim at the same end to oblige and encourage us to be more strictly pious And therefore He astonished all his Auditors who acknowledged an Authority in his words greater than was in the discourses of the wisest men among them They said never man spake like him Whole Synagogues as I have shown wondred at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth They enquired one of another how a man should come by all that wisdom who had no learned education His adversaries were often silenced by his answers They found themselves so non-plust that they durst not ask him any more questions merely for fear of being more confounded All which and much more that might be said is a sufficient evidence that he knew very well what He said and understood his doctrine and was a person of a clear reason who could not be abused by the impostures of fancy and imagination X. And as for the other cavil that possibly a man may suffer the illusion of evil Spirits which may make him confident without reason Let it be also granted because the Devil hath sometimes transformed himself into an Angel of light as the Apostle S. Paul speaks and so might perswade men that God or an Angel had spoken to them or that they had visions and revelations from above with which conceit He might so possess them that they might be ready to take it upon their death that they said nothing but the Truth But withall it is notoriously evident that such a person as our Saviour could not be liable to such diabolical impressions For first the holiness of his doctrine which overthrows the Devils kingdom and authority plainly shows how much he was in the favour of God And secondly his conquests over the Devil when he assaulted him with his temptations his turning him out of his possession every where and making him acknowledge his authority is an evident token how much superiour he was to him and so not obnoxious to his abuses And thirdly they who had been the followers of Jesus but a little while were too strong for the Devil and much above his power to hurt them and therefore how could he himself be touched by him They are S. John's words in this Epistle ii 14. I have written unto you young men because ye are strong and the word of God abideth in you and ye have overcome the wicked one And again the further his doctrine was propagated the more was the kingdom of the Devil overthrown and all his cheats detected and discovered As all impiety was plucked up by the roots and godliness planted in the room of it so all superstitious devices all Magick all Divination wherewith he had long gull'd and couzened the World and kept them in Idolatry were laid so naked and bare that they were ashamed and presently vanished There is an excellent discourse concerning this in Athanasius his Book concerning the Incarnation of the Word which must not here be entirely transcribed but only these few words of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who then let it be considered and how great is this CHRIST who by his name and presence obscures and abolishes all things every where and alone prevails over all and fills the whole world with his Discipline Let the Gentiles that blush not to deride and laugh at us tell me whether He be a mere man who does these things If he be why do they not blush to see one man stronger than all their Gods How comes he to demonstrate by his power that they are nothing But if they will call him a Magician let them tell me again how it comes to pass that he destroys all Magick and doth not rather establish it He that can fancy all that I have now mentioned to have been done by the Devil which was so much to his prejudice must one would think be possessed with some evil Spirit himself There is nothing can declare a man not to be deceived by the Devil if this will not that He is the very person who lays open all the Devils frauds and discovers his wiles and delivers men from all his subtil impostures So did our Saviour and therefore we may conclude that as he believed his doctrine even concerning himself to be true so that was true which he believed and that he was not deluded either by his own private Spirit or by any else And the truth is his Adversaries never took him for a vain Enthusiast or for a man that was ignorantly deceived but still they accuse him as a subtil Impostor and would fain have had it thought that he craftily invented what he preached to destroy their credit and establish his own But this I have shown is incredible For who could imagine that he should gain any credit and reputation by being put to death upon a shameful cross into which he was not ensnared by their cunning but foresaw and frequently foretold and voluntarily offered himself to suffer it Allow him but to be a man of common sense and you must think he would not have contrived this way to procure fame and to propagate his doctrine in the world unless he had verily thought it to be so true that his Cross which proved the laughter of the Gentiles and the stumbling-block of the Jews could not hinder him from being honoured in the World as the Son of God Nothing else could make him chuse to die on this manner but his sincere belief of what he preached and there being no cause in the world to suspect any thing of a melancholy proud imagination or a diabolical illusion that should impose upon him such a belief it remains that our Saviour by his very death proved and confirmed the truth of what he preached He first came by WATER and then he came by BLOUD And as his BLOUD proves he did not abuse us with that which he knew to be false so the WATER his holy Doctrine and Life proves that he had no flaw in his understanding nor was abused himself with any fancies or illusions when he took himself to be so certainly the Son of God that he sealed it with his precious BLOUD XI And it ought to be considered also that it was prophesied before by the holy men of God that their CHRIST should suffer and be despised of men and be in nothing more remarkable than in his sorrows And therefore his BLOUD was a sign to those who believed those prophecies that Jesus was the CHRIST especially his bloud so disgracefully shed because He appeared hereby as well as by other marks to be the
No man then had the impudence to deny the Eclipse of the Sun the Earthquake the rending of the veil of the Temple and the rest of the astonishing things that then hapned The first of them is mentioned by a Pagan-writer and though the Apostles published both that and all the other continually yet there is no book either of Jew or Gentile who were enemies great enough to his Religion that goes about to disprove them And as for his miraculous works they were generally done openly at Feasts in the Synagogues on the high-ways and were so commonly talkt of that the Rulers feared all the world would run after him xii John 19. Therefore the Apostles could not falsifie in the report of these things but they might be easily confuted Which no man ever attempted but both Jews and Gentiles acknowledged that he wrought Miracles for his Apostles also wrought them every where and so did their Successors in some Ages after To these the Ancient Christians appeal as an undoubted testimony to their Faith which they could not be so silly as to mention were there any dispute whether there had been Miracles wrought or no. His Resurrection also was attested by Five hundred people who saw him together at once and it was proved beyond contradiction by the strange descent of those miraculous gifts upon his Apostles according to his promise Which came upon them also at a Feast when all the Nation though living in far distant Countries were assembled together and a great company of Proselytes also and devout people were present to be witnesses of it Yea the Apostles themselves as is notoriously known went over all the world and openly showed the power of Jesus which was in them Now if all these be true Witnesses or rather if you grant there were such Witnesses which no sober man can deny they being visible here on Earth in the company of so much people there can be no doubt remaining of this that Jesus is the Son of God They proclaim this so loudly with one voice that S. John had reason to say We beheld his glory the glory as of the only begotten of the Father They beheld it in his Preaching and Life they beheld it in his bloudy Death but especially in the power of his SPIRIT both before he died and in raising him up from the dead and they beheld it also when they were with him in the holy Mount and had the Testimony of the rest of the Heavenly Witnesses Which were heard on Earth though they were in Heaven as men of high quality and of unblemished integrity with the hazard of all they had did constantly affirm And though some of those Heavenly Witnesses might not be believed so much at the first which is the cause I suppose that our Saviour bids his Apostles as you have heard not declare what the voice from Heaven said till after his Resurrection xvii Matth. 9. yet when they had received such great testimony that they were good men and men of God by having the Holy Ghost bestowed on them to bestow upon others also and when by this they were able to demonstrate his Resurrection then all the rest that they alledged as a proof that he was the Son of God did highly merit belief also and there was no reason to suspect the truth of such reports as were verified in so authentick a manner For with great power gave the Apostles witness of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus iv Acts 33. And the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus was a powerful Witness that there was nothing so great said of him by the voices from Heaven but it ought to be received as the undoubted truth of God Who at sundry times and in divers manners testified to his Son Jesus that by some means or other the most obstinate hearts might be convinced and those tongues which blasphemed him might confess him to be the Lord. A PRAYER ALL thy works praise thee O holy Jesus they all show the greatness of thy power and declare thee to be the Lord. All thy Saints therefore ought to bless thee and to speak good of thy Name who didst manifest forth thy glory in such miraculous works upon Earth and art now crowned with such glory and honour in the Heavens Great was the glory of that Almighty love which gave health to the sick feet to the lame eyes to the blind and life to the dead How gloriously didst thou triumph over the Devil and all the powers of darkness declaring thy self to be the Redeemer of the World by delivering those who were oppressed by him Great was thy Majesty and therefore greatly to be praised Those triumphs ought to have been attended with the most joyful shouts of Praise and Thanksgiving to thee as the Saviour of men and the Lord of Men and Angels All that saw thy wonderful works ought with never-ceasing love to have glorified thee the great Lover of mankind the Repairer of our ruines the Restorer of our happiness our mighty Deliverer from all our Enemies and the inexhaustible Fountain of life and all other good things which thou every where dispensedst to them How ought all our hearts now to overflow with love to thee the blessings of whose goodness so overflowed in all places that none can tell the number of them Especially when we remember how by the mighty working of the same Spirit which glorified thee so on Earth thou art raised from the dead carried to Heaven set at the right hand of God and made the King of glory This is the Lord 's doing and it is marvellous in our eyes This is the sovereign Balsam of all our wounds This is our solace and comfort in the greatest troubles This raises our Spirits when they are oppressed and gives us life in death it self Be thou honoured and acknowledged by me and by all mankind with the humblest the most hearty and affectionate devotion to thy service Be thou ever praised as much as thou wast reproached and blasphemed Let thy Name be sweet and mentioned with delight and joy throughout all the World Live O blessed Jesus in the glory wherein thou art inthroned Sit and reign there till all thine Enemies become thy foot-stool For among the Gods there is none like unto thee O Lord neither are there any works like unto thy works All Nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee O Lord and shall glorifie thy Name For thou art great and hast done wondrous things Thou art Lord alone O give unto the Lord ye kindreds of the people give unto the Lord glory and strength Ascribe unto the Lord the glory due unto his name O worship him in the beauty of holiness Say among the Heathen the Lord reigneth who was dead but is alive again and liveth for evermore O sing unto the Lord a new song sing unto the Lord all the Earth Yea sing unto the Lord a new song and worship him all ye Gods For thou
by their hands xiv 3. And in the same manner at Corinth Colosse Philippi and all other places the Divine power wrought in them mightily i. Colos 29. upon which account they call themselves with great reason Witnesses OF GOD 1 Cor. xv 14 15. If Christ be not risen our preaching is vain yea and we are found false witnesses of God which had been a most horrible thing because we have testified OF GOD that he raised up Christ They testified every where what God had done by Jesus and for him particularly that he had raised him from the dead Now that they did not take upon them to be Gods Witnesses when they had received no authority from him nor were guilty of belying God as the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports the Spirit that wrought in them evidently proved by the gifts of Languages of Prophecy of Wisdom and Knowledge of Miracles and healing all manner of Diseases Which made the Angel say when S. John was going to worship him by no means see thou do it not I am but thy fellow servant one of thy Brethren that bears witness to Jesus as thou dost For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy xix Rev. 10. that is those gifts which the Apostles were endued withal showed whose ministers they were and that being the servants of the most High God as well as the Angels they owed no such respect to them as S. John was about to give and by those Divine gifts they gave a testimony to Jesus and proved he was the Son of God wherein they were equal to the Angels who could no more than testifie to him and be his ministers to report the glory wherein he was Upon which errand not only this but many other Angels appeared to S. John who together with the rest of the Apostles bare record of the Word of God as I have noted before and of the testimony of Jesus and of all things that he saw i. Rev. 3. And herein they were labourers together with God 1 Cor. iii. 9. who testified the same and wrought as effectually in S. Peter among the Jews as he was mighty in S. Paul towards the Gentiles ii Gal. 8. For God wrought special miracles by his hands xix Acts 11. and made the Gentiles obedient by word and deed through mighty signs and wonders by the power of the SPIRIT of God xv Rom. 18 19. So that the Faith of that Age it is plain did not stand in the wisdom of men as S. Paul speaks 1 Cor. ii 5. but in the power of God They that believed saw evidently that God was with the Apostles nay they felt many of them the power of God in themselves as you have heard before when the Apostles communicated this vertue to others which they had received from Jesus Christ Which was such a Testimony to him as no counterfeit or false witness could ever imitate For it hath been a constant observation that they who by Magick astonished the People by wonderful feats not only did them for their own gain and reputation rather than for any benefit to the World but also kept this secret to themselves and would not communicate their power to others That would have spoiled their trade and made them less admired or at least less rich than they designed But our Lord on the contrary had promised his Disciples that what he did when he was in the world they should do also after he was gone Nay more than that he tells them Greater things shall ye do And which is still more he promises that not only they but others also should do those works if they believed on him xiv Joh. 11 12. Believe me for the very works sake Verily verily I say unto you he that believeth on me the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these shall he do because I go to my Father Now thus it came to pass as our Saviour foretold Not only the Apostles but others also who believed through their word received the Holy Ghost For as S. Peter confidently invited his Crucifiers to come and repent of what they had done and be baptized every one of them in his Name and they should receive the gift of the Holy Ghost ii Act. 38. So it proved that they who gladly received his word were baptized ver 41. and were all filled with the Holy Ghost iv 31. This was the thing that amazed that famous Sorcerer Simon Magus whom the Samaritans admired as the great power of God till S. Philip came thither and perswaded even him by the miracles and signs which he did to believe in Jesus as a greater power of God than himself But when the Apostles also came and by laying on of their hands the Holy Ghost was given to several persons He plainly saw that he was no body and would have given any Money for such a power as he had not the least shadow of viii Act. 10 11 c. But all that I shall say of this matter shall be out of one of the ancient defenders of the Christian cause who thought he might challenge all the world to show him any thing like that which our Saviour did or give an account how it might be done if he was not the Son of God most high It is Arnobius I mean who in his first Book against the Gentiles having delivered in a Catalogue of our Saviour's miracles and shown they could not be the effect of Magick at last concludes with this great demonstration the substance of which I shall briefly relate All these wonders which I have summed up though not as the greatness of them required Jesus not only performed himself but which is a greater miracle gave many others power to do them in his Name For he fore-seeing there would be indeavours to detract from the glory of his famous actions that he might leave no suspicion in the minds of those that heard of him as if he were a Sorcerer chose out of that vast multitude of People that followed him with no small admiration certain Fishermen poor Labourers and other Country People who going through all Nations might without any tricks false colours or invoking the assistance of Spirits work all those miracles over again which they said he had wrought himself As He commanded Devils to come out with a word of his mouth in the same manner did they lay their commands upon them and they obeyed As He did but put forth his hand and touch a Leper or bid him be clean and his flesh was restored like a little Childs in the same manner did they smooth the skins of such loathsome persons and restore them to the welcome society of their friends and neighbours It would be too tedious to number all things particularly that they did and which is more I may add gave power to other Christians to do in their Master's Name They stopt the progress of cruel eating Cancers they closed up
we understand thereby their holy preaching and living For it is said ver 3. that they had power to prophesie which signifies that they were endowed with extraordinary gifts for Prophets were next to Apostles in the Church to interpret and expound the holy writings and prove out of Moses and the Prophets as our Saviour did xxiv Luke 27. all things that concerned him both his sufferings and his glory And this they did cloathed in sackcloth that is in the habit of mourners for the abominations I suppose which they saw committed and the provoking infidelity of those to whom they preached Which was a notable mark of their great piety and charity as you may learn from ix Ezek. 4. and v. Matth. 4. They are said also to be the two Olive-trees ver 4. that is like Zerubbabel and Joshua two famous persons among the Jews after the captivity who were represented by this Emblem iv Zach. 3. King and Priests unto God men endowed with great authority and illumination from above and with as great purity For they had so much of the oil of gladness that they imparted it to others to the Candlesticks that is the Churches wherein they shined For so S. John teaches us in the beginning of this Book to interpret Candlesticks which is a great argument of the excellency of these men who by the witness of their life and doctrine made all those who were under their care to testifie some way or other to the same truth that they did At least by their lives for they are said to stand before the God of the Earth Which is an Hebrew phrase signifying to minister unto God to be imployed in his worship and service as the Priests and People were at the Temple and therefore sets forth the piety and devotion of these persons whose business it was to serve God even then when it was most dangerous so to do And as by Water so by Bloud also they bare witness of him For they had war made against them and in the fight since they would not yield they were killed ver 7. Nay it was notorious to all that their persecutors had not only drawn the sword against them but that they had resisted unto bloud for their dead bodies lay in the street of the great City ver 8. and they would not suffer them to be put in graves ver 9. which shows the enraged malice which they bare to these zealous WITNESSES who had tormented them ver 10. by the sharpness of their arguments and by their constant reproofs of their infidelity and wickedness Nor was the Witness of the SPIRIT wanting for they approved themselves as Ministers of God to speak in S. Paul's language and Witnesses of Christ by wonders and miracles so great that they might be compared to the two great Prophets Moses and Elias who appeared with our Saviour on the holy Mount For they sent fire out of their mouths ver 5. and had power to shut up Heaven that it should not rain ver 6. both which were the known works of Elias They had power likewise over the Waters to turn them to bloud and to smite the Earth with all plagues as often as they pleased ver 6. which is the plain description of men like to Moses who brought such plagues on the Egyptians as these had power to do upon those who were like them both in hardness of heart and in oppression of the faithful servants of God And therefore I suppose they are described with a power to hurt and destroy rather than with that healing and saving vertue wherewith the first Witnesses of Christ principally came to signifie that their rebellious enemies should be punished for their rejecting Jesus and doing despight to the SPIRIT of grace which once came to them in a more healthful and salutary manner casting out Devils turning Water into Wine healing all manner of Plagues and Diseases and that as often as they themselves pleased to desire And more than this you read ver 11. that after the time appointed by God for it he restored these Prophets to life again and thereby made their testimony something like that of his Son 's That is men animated with the very same spirit stood up in their place to the amazement of all their opposers Who were so far from being able to hurt them that they were as safe as if they had been in Heaven The presence of God was with them as in the cloud which preserved the Israelites from all danger And he advanced them to great honour by the Heavenly gifts wherewith they were adorned As Elias is said to come though he did not appear in person but another in his spirit and power and David is said to be raised up to reign over the Jews xxx Jer. 9. because his Son that is Christ was set upon his Throne so did the Spirit of life from God enter into these witnesses and they stood upon their feet when he raised up other Apostolical persons in their stead who were not less eminent than those who were dead but full of the same spirit of wisdom holiness burning zeal and might and power also from God This frighted all their enemies as well it might when they saw the Christian Cause would not die do what they could But if they killed some others started up in their room to witness unto Jesus and assert the same truth by wonders by their admirable preaching by their holy life and by death it self if nothing else would satisfie them For thus all the MARTYRS testified to him Whose BLOUD witnessed not only that they believed his Religion and that they valued the favour of Jesus more than their lives but that they had very good reason so to do or else men of such wisdom would not have endured such torments as they freely exposed themselves unto with so much chearfulness as we find they did For as S. Hilary tells us Some gloried in the chains which they wore in prison others being beaten till they died did nothing but give thanks others readily laid down their necks to be cut off and more ran to those piles which they saw built to burn them and with a devout haste leapt into those fires at which the ministers of their torments trembled and there were those who were thrown into the Sea not as if they were to be drown'd but went to partake of the refreshment of eternal bliss So he writes upon those words of the Psalmist lxv 10 12. Thou hast tried us as silver is tried we went through fire and water c. The fruit of which was that thereby many were converted unto Christ Their death gave life to others who seeing their zeal their constancy their meekness their patience and their charity became Proselytes to that faith for which they suffered A new race of illustrious Martyrs rose up in their stead in whom they yet lived For there was no other cause as that Father adds upon the following
visible shape while he lived There is not one of his own followers as the learned Mr. Pocock assures us who makes any mention so much as of the Pigeon which as we commonly tell the tale was wont to flie to his ear as if it whispered some revelation to him There was not that small imitation of what is recorded of our Saviour Much less was there any such glorious body seen descending on him as that which came down like a Dove and crowned our Saviours head The Heavens never opened to him nor was he transfigured in the presence of any of his disciples Where are the Books that can tell us of any such thing or so much as of any miracles which he wrought to confirm his Doctrine He himself says in his Alcoran more than once that he was not sent with Miracles but with Arms. And though his followers afterward pretended that he did work miracles yet they never pretend they were done frequently and most of them are very ridiculous and useless and their learned men do not at all rely upon them nor think he proved his Prophecy by this means There is no news of any blind-mans eyes that he opened or of his making the lame to walk or cleansing a poor Leper much less of a dead-mans hearing his voice and arising out of his grave and of such like things done by his followers which we are sure from eye-witnesses our Lord did and gave those that testifie it power to do the same wonders And if we go to enquire of the Witness of Water in Holiness of Doctrine and Life what a sink of dirty stuff is his Alcoran The pleasures of the flesh are the highest that he had in his thoughts to propound to his followers His Heaven is no better than a sensual Paradise But as for the joys of the Holy Ghost or a taste of any spiritual delights he seems to have had no more sense of them than a Swine How should he being an impure lascivious beast himself who had seventeen Wives besides Concubines And not content with these took another mans Wife the wife of his servant Zaid and pretended a revelation for it Which he had the impudence to say told him that God was not only well pleased he should have her but took it ill he had abstained so long from her out of fear what the world would say Whereas he ought to have feared God rather than men What could be expected from such a Brute but such a Book as he has left a mere heap or dunghill rather of filthy nonsence And if we enquire further for the Witness of BLOUD we can find none but the Bloud of other men which bears witness that he was a false Prophet For his business was to shed the bloud of his opposers rather than to give his own as a testimony to the truth The sword was his principal weapon to subdue men to his belief He did not perswade them by arguments but compelled them to yield by force of arms Go says he in the xix Section of the Alcoran and kill all those who will not be converted He was a Murderer as well as a Lyar like the first Deceiver of all so that to save their Bodies rather than their Souls his neighbours found it the best way to submit themselves to his yoke Did our blessed Saviour use any such violence Did he come with a sword in his hand and say Yield your understandings or your throats No he came not to destroy mens lives but to save them He would not let his Apostles call for fire from Heaven to consume any body though it had been as easie for him to do as to send the Holy Ghost in fiery tongues upon them He never did any miracle to the hurt of the smallest living creature though it would have been recompensed by a multitude of noble cures that he wrought for their owners It did not please him that one of his servants cut off but the ear of Malchus though it was in his defence He was the good shepherd who would not kill the sheep but laid down his life for them This we commemorate perpetually to his eternal praise whereas the false Prophet hath left no other memory but that he was more like a Wolf than a Shepherd for he came for nothing but to worry and destroy But he doth not deserve so much regard as to be thus seriously confuted were not all this said rather to make us sensible of the excellence of our own Religion than to disprove that which was taught by him Whose greatest wisdome was that he chose to begin to make his Proselytes and plant his Religion among a company of rude People who were more like Beasts I told you than Men. If they had been Men of any understanding one cannot imagine how they should have given credit to such ill contrived tales as those which he invented But we are told by his own followers that the People of Mecca a place famous for his Tomb at this day could neither write nor read but were perfectly ignorant Nay Mahomet himself was wont to say that he was sent by God to an illiterate Nation Which they expound of the Arabians about Mecca who were not People of the Book as they call the Jews and Christians but as ignorant as they came out of their Mothers Womb says one of their own Authors having never learnt the art of writing or of casting account Which shows how vastly different the beginnings of that Religion were from those of ours which was preached to the wisest and politest People upon Earth as that was to the most rude and stupid The Greeks and Romans soon saw their Countries filled with this new Doctrine Nor was it in the power of their Philosophers or Orators to stop its progress But there were no such Creatures among those wild Arabians and those Philosophers who arose afterwards of this Sect were ashamed it may be made appear by good proofs of the Alcoran So destitute they are of any thing whereby to support the Religion of that Book that they are fain to fly to the Gospel of Christ from thence to gain some authority to it There says the Saracen in Theodorus Abucara Christ wrote these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I send you a Prophet called Mahomet but Christians have blotted it out of their Books For He they fancy is the Paraclet whom our Saviour promises and it is one of the Names they bestow upon this Impostor in their writings who pretends our Saviour foretold his coming as many have observed out of the lxi Chapter of the Alcoran * Hacksp Dialog de Passione Domin Which shows how hard they are put to their shifts when they fly to us for refuge and when Ignorance is the greatest security and support to their Religion at this day It is very remarkable that as our Religion was propagated among the wisest and most learned Nations by the most illiterate men
meerly by the power of the Spirit and the Holy Ghost so being thus propagated all the learned part of the World is of our Religion They that are of any other are ignorant of good learning as their great enemy But this fears not to be tried because it is sure that knowledge is its Friend and that wisdome as our Saviour said will be justified of her Children Who clearly see even from their own Writings that Mahomet at the best was but an hot Enthusiast who took his own warm thoughts for inspiration But he had no assurance of what he said As the humour wrought he was for new illuminations It was not his fault that his Disciples had not another Book which should have put down the Alcoran For as our famous Professor of this Learning * Mr. Pocock Ib. p. 178. has observed out of Alsharestanius when he lay sick of the Fever of which he dyed he called for Pen and Ink that he might write them an infallible Book it seems as yet he had not done it to keep them from erring when he was dead This Omar lookt upon as a frenzy though Mahomet took it for an inspiration and said Alas the sickness of the Apostle of God is very strong It is sufficient that we have the Book of God i. e. the Alcoran there needs no more But some were of another mind and while the Company that stood by contended and strove among themselves some calling for the Pen and Ink and others agreeing with Omar that he was beside himself Mahomet cryed out Get ye gone it doth not become you to dispute before me and so there was an end But some bewail this as a great misfortune that he did not write them such a Book as he then had in his Head that is more frenzies and ravings of his brain-sick imagination But it is time to have done with this which I have said not meerly to show how senceless that Religion is which hath over-spread so great a part of the World but how happy we are who are taught by our Lord and Master Christ Jesus Whose faith relies upon such certain evident and divine grounds that if we did but live according to it we need not fear but by its power and force it would overcome and vanquish the other though supported by never so numerous followers The Lord of his infinite mercy quicken our Faith that we may out-live them for it is plain we can so far out-reason them that there is no more comparison between our grounds and theirs than there is between the wisest man that ever was and those blocks of Mecca that could neither write nor read II. The only Religion that can come into any competition with ours is that of Moses who indeed was sent of God and as became a faithful servant of his in the House or Family committed to his charge followed his orders and honestly testified and reported those things which God commanded him to speak iii. Hebr. 5. But if you seriously weigh what hath been said you will find the Jews had not such weighty Arguments to perswade them to believe on Moses as we have to believe in Jesus who hath abrogated a great part of that Religion And first for the Witness of the FATHER the Jews say ix Joh. 29. We know that God spake to Moses But how did they know it What evidence were they able to give themselves of it If it had pleased them to lay aside their passion and look beyond the prejudices of their education the proof of it would have appeared so slender in comparison with the assurances they might have had of his speaking to Jesus that they would never have added those scornful words which there follow as for this fellow we know not whence he is God appeared indeed to Moses in the Bush and said to him iii. Exod 6. I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. And bids him say to the Children of Israel to whom he ordered him to go I am hath sent me to you vers 14. But which of the Israelites stood by when God spake these words to him What person was there like John Baptist to be a Witness of this Voice which was his Commission What Creature was there with him but the Flock he was feeding that could come afterward and say I was present and heard God call to him out of the Bush Doth the Voice say any where I am hath sent HIM as if it spake to others besides himself or what words did he himself hear comparable to those which God spake to our Saviour saying Thou art my Son my well-beloved Son Nor was the manner alike wherein these two Voices were delivered One out of the Bush the other from Heaven And the Glory wherewith this came to Moses was much inferiour to the glorious appearance of the Holy Ghost descending upon Jesus An Angel of the Lord you read appeared then to Moses in a flame of fire vers 2. But the flame was in the midst of the Bush not upon Moses Whereas the Holy Ghost not an Angel of the Lord came down at our Saviour's Baptism when he was sent and not into some distant place but lighted upon HIM and there remained God therefore is said to DWELL in the Bush xxxiii Deut. 16. but never to dwell in Moses and the dwelling of God there was only by the Presence and Ministry of an Angel Whereas now Jesus himself is the dwelling place of God as I have proved and it is God himself that dwells in him The Divine Majesty came upon him and there it setled its abode in his Person Who is God manifested in the flesh and whose Glory we behold the Glory as of the only begotten of the Father which cannot be said of any other man All this is so plain that Moses himself saw this appearance of God to him though sufficient to perswade him that he was sent of God because he heard him speak to him out of the Bush would not prove a demonstration to others who did not hear or see any thing to make them believe him nor had any credible witnesses to justifie this beside himself He says as much afterward to him that sent him Behold they will not believe me nor hearken to my voice for they will say the Lord hath not appeared unto thee iv Exod. 1. And how could he confute them when they made this exception unless he had some sensible demonstration to give them that God was with him which God immediately furnishes him withall ver 2. though nothing like to the Power of our Saviour as you shall hear presently All the miracles he wrought were as short of our Lords as His first Commission was which you see plainly was nothing so noble nothing so clear as that of our blessed Saviour's Moses himself is sensible of it and confesses he wanted some Witness that God spake to him and that he knew not what to say
to think their offences have made their enemy is a thing that can never be certainly resolved without a Revelation Without which also we can have little security of the immortality of our Souls and of the life to come Which hath inclined all Mankind to listen after a Revelation and to catch at any thing which pretends to come from God to them For as Plato acknowledges when he ordains there should be no alterations made in the ancient Customes about Sacrifices because it is not possible for mortal nature to know any thing of these matters without it No says he not long after in the same Book * In Epinom as no body shall ever perswade me that there is any greater Piety than true Vertue and as there is nothing more excellent can be taught than how those that honour Vertue should rightly worship God with Sacrifices and other rites of purifying So none can teach this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless God show him the way and be his Guide and Leader in so excellent a work But if we search into all the records that are in the World what is there that can stand in competition with the Christian way of worshipping God or pretend to come with such authority from him I have examined those that have most to say for themselves and they can produce no such WITNESSES as Christianity doth No not that ancient Revelation made by God to Moses As for the old Pagan ways which were very various I am ashamed to mention them It is manifest they suffered themselves to be cheated by impure Spirits and took the answers of Daemons for the Oracles of God But ask now of the days that are past which were before us since the day that God created Man upon the Earth and ask from the one side of Heaven unto the other whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is or hath been heard like it that God indeed appeared among Men and was manifest in the flesh as is evident by all the signs and wonders and mighty deeds by voices from Heaven by his Resurrection from the dead and all the other Witnesses which have testified this truth to the world Ask again hath God ever assured Men of any thing by so many and such evident testimonies as those which I have produced Unto us it was shown that we might know that Jesus is the Lord and beside him there is no other if I may again allude to the words of Moses iv Deut. 34 35. out of Heaven he hath made us hear his voice that he might instruct us and upon Earth he hath shown us his great wonders that every tongue might confess Jesus is the Lord to the Glory of God the Father III. That now is the next thing I am to press as a necessary consequence of what hath been said in the foregoing Treatise Though there were such slender proofs in comparison with ours that God spake to Moses and though others as I said were drawn away by the subtilties of evil Angels yet they all believed and gave great reverence to that which was delivered to them Every Nation gladly received and held fast that which did but pretend to come from Heaven Which must needs extremely reproach us and put us to eternal shame if we having better evidences should not only be Believers but have a stronger faith in Jesus That which Plato thought was to be wisht for is now come to pass God is come to be our Guide and Director The very wisdome of the Father hath appeared to teach us He that made all the World is come down hither to reform us The WORD IS MADE FLESH that as he had Principalum in coelis to use the words of Irenaeus * L. 4. cap. 37. the Lordship in Heaven so he might have Principatum in terra the same Soveraignty upon Earth He hath appeared also in wonderful and astonisht brightness to convince us of his authority and to make us know assuredly that he is God blessed for ever Shall we not then hear his words shall we not deliver up our selves to receive his Heavenly instruction which came with such powerful demonstration God forbid that any of us should be so perverse as hearing such WITNESSES speak unto us for the Lord Jesus we should give no credit to them I cannot but believe as S. Austin * L. de vera Relig. cap. 3. excellently discourses that if Plato now lived and would vouchsafe to answer my Questions or rather if any Scholar of his being perswaded that truth is not to be seen with corporeal eyes but by a pure mind and that nothing hinders the sight more than a life addicted to lust and false Images of sensible things which impressed on us beget various errors and that therefore the mind is to be purified that it may behold that unchangeable beauty which is always the same and always like it self If I say a Scholar of his thus taught by him should ask him whether in case there should be a Man Great and Divine that should perswade the People at least to believe such things though they could not perceive them or if they did perceive them were so ingaged in vulgar errors that they durst not or could not oppose them He would not judge him worthy of Divine honour I believe he would Answer that this could not be done by Man unless perhaps the very power and wisdome of God should honour some person who was not taught of men but from the Cradle illuminated by the most intimate knowledge of things with so great a grace and strengthen him with such resolution and bear him up with such a majesty that contemning all things that evil Men desire and induring all things that they dread and doing all things that they admire he should convert Mankind with equal kindness and authority to so wholesome a Faith And he would add that it was to no purpose to ask him what the Honours are which ought to be given to such a person when it is easie to be discerned what honour is due to the wisdome of God by the guidance and governance of which he would singularly deserve of Mankind and do some thing for their Salvation proper only to himself and which was above Men to do Now if these things which I have supposed be really done if there be good records of them if from a Country in which alone One God was worshipped and where such a person was to be born there came chosen men who by their Vertues and their Sermons have kindled in Mens breasts the flame of the Divine love and have left the inlightned Earth under a most wholesome Discipline if every where it is preached that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God if to the perceiving and embracing this that the Soul may be cured and recover strength to entertain so great a light the covetous hear such
Our Passions are not mastered Forgetting our heavenly Originall we let anger swell and rage and take no care to suppress that pride and haughtiness which will at last lay us low We do not chastise irrational sadness nor foolish pleasure nor unchaste laughter nor disorderly aspects nor unsatiable hearing nor immoderate talking nor absurd thoughts nor any of those things by which the Evill one takes advantage against us to our ruine There is nothing like to this but quite contrary we give liberty to other mens evill affections and like Princes when they have got the Victory require nothing of them but onely that they be on our side and take our part though they oppose God the more impiously and audaciously These things it seems were then too manifest to be denied and notwithstanding these reproaches of holy men the humour propagated it self to after-times For the cure or prevention of which nothing is so necessary to be believed and preserved perpetually in mind as that Counsel which the same great Doctour gives in another place * Orat. xxix p. 493. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Wouldst thou be a Divine and worthy of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Keep the Commandments Go in the way of God's precepts Practice is the best step thou canst take to contemplation Which is the surest advice for all Christians to follow who must not think by any other means to arrive at that blissfull sight of God in which our knowledge of him will be perfected in the other World Of which Beatificall Vision I have not adventured to say much in the ensuing Treatise because our manner of living as Saint Augustine * Epist cxii ad Paulinam speaks in an Epistle of his upon this very subject is of more consideration in this inquiry then our manner of speaking Nam qui didicerunt à Domino Jesu mites esse humiles corde plùs cogitando orando proficiunt quà m legendo audiendo For they that have learned of the Lord Jesus to be lowly and humble in heart profit more by meditation and prayer then they can by reading and hearing But something I have said as far as I could find any directions in the Holy Scriptures which warrant us to conclude that the participation we have of God now shall be so improved in the other World that whatsoever we enjoy of him here we shall in a higher and after a more perfect manner with the addition of immortality enjoy when we rise from the dead We are now the Sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus who bids us be confident of it and rejoyce in it And yet he mentions this as a speciall priviledge belonging to us after the resurrection when we shall not marry nor die any more but be equall to the Angels and be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sons of God being the children of the Resurrection xx Luk. 35 36. Just as it was with our Lord Christ himself who was in a more speciall and excellent manner called the Son of God after his rising from the dead when God said to him Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee advanced him that is to a more excellent degree of likeness to him in power and dominion putting all things under his feet So it shall be with all those Sons whom he brings unto glory They shall be more nearly related to God at the Resurrection and resemble him more exactly whose Image they now bear in Wisedom and Goodness But how much he will then impart of himself to us the Apostles themselves were not able to inform us We are now the Sons of God faith Saint John 1 Ep. iii. 2. but it doth not yet appear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how we shall be the Sons of God in the other world We now find I may adde by a parity of reason a great pleasure in holy thoughts we feel the joys of ardent love are ravisht with the melody of Songs of praise and with the sweet violence of a glance of light from heaven upon us and we are fure we shall be so happy as to have a great increase of this pleasure when we remove from hence But it doth not appear how we shall think nor what will be the satisfaction of heavenly Love nor what new Songs shall be put into our mouths nor how God will look in upon us when we shall see him as he is We must be content to know that all these will bear a proportion to the infinite Goodness of Him who is Omnipotent and hath loved us so much as to purchase us with a great price and to give his Holy Spirit to us and according to the Love of him that died for us and is gone to prepare a place for us that where he is there we may be also In this hope we may now rejoyce though we do not at present see our Lord with joy unspeakable and full of glory For I have proved by undeniable arguments that God the Father hath given power to his Son Jesus to make us more happy then we can now conceive and that He will undoubtedly bring us to live with himself What greater Good can we desire then this Or what greater Motive can be thought of to perswade us sincerely to embrace the Christian Religion whose business it is as Lactantius concludes his Book of a Blessed Life to direct us to the Eternall Rewards of the heavenly Treasure Of which that we may be capable we must presently disingage our selves from the insnaring pleasures of this Life which deceive mens Souls by their pernicious sweetness And how great a felicity ought we to esteem it to go being delivered from the impurities of this Earth to that most equall Judge and most indulgent Father who for our labours will give us rest for death life for darkness light for earthly short goods those that are celestiall and eternall None of the sharpnesses and miseries which we endure here while we are employed in the works of righteousness are in any manner to be compared with that reward Therefore if we will be wise if we will be happy let us propose the worst things that can be to our selves and resolve to suffer them since it is manifest that this frail Pleasure we have here shall not be without punishment nor Vertue without a divine reward All mankind ought to endeavour with all speed to direct themselves into the right way that having undertaken and performed the duties of a vertuous life and patiently endured its labours they may be worthy to have God for their Comforter For our Father and Lord who made and settled the Heaven who brought the Sun and the rest of the Stars into it and out of Nothing raised the rest of the World to this perfection wherein we see it beholding the Errours of mankind sent a Leader who should lay before us the way of righteousness Him let us all follow Him let us hear Him let us most
it a disparagement to their Master Moses did they not satisfie themselves with this ridiculous reason for it to be spoken unto after such a manner as the Scripture of truth relates then by their own confession it is a great honour to our Lord and Master and argues his high dignity that the Divine Majesty spake to him in such a way as they cannot but esteem most perfect and agreeable to his Divine Goodness And we may look upon this pure Light in which God is said to dwell as a sign that Heaven was to be opened by this Person and that he would restore us to the Glory of God of which we we all faln short and bring mankind to that joy and satisfaction of heart which the Disciples began to feel in themselves at this most comfortable sight And I make no question had not the holy Books told us so expresly that God spake to them in clouds and fire and vapour they would have fabled that he appeared to their Master in pure light and shone about him in the brightness of his glory without the least darkness to obscure it For I find that many of those things which the holy Story of the New Testament reports in honour of John Baptist or of our Blessed Saviour they have thrust into the Story of Moses where he himself in his Books hath not confessed the contrary to keep him in the greater credit with their Nation in this time of their calamitous desertion It being recorded for example that John Baptist was born when his parents were very old and could not believe it was possible for them to have a child which makes his birth a wonder being out of the course of Nature they have made bold to tell the same of Moses but with a large addition of years whose mother Jochebed they say was no less then an hundred and thirty years old when she was delivered of him which Aben Ezra in his Notes upon the text * A. Ezra in ii Exod. ver 1. is desirous should pass for a current truth And as we reade that when our Saviour came into the world the Glory of the LORD an exceeding great light from heaven shone round about the shepherds who had the first news of it which was intended as a note of his Divinity and heavenly descent So they have devised * R. Solomon in ii Exod. 3. that at the Nativity of Moses the house where he was born was filled with such a light that they could not see by reason of its splendour In like manner the Apostle proves our Lord to be greater then the Angels far above all principality and power c. i. Heb. 3 4. i. Eph. 19 20. and therefore Moses forsooth must be raised to this wondrous pitch â— Moses Haccozi whom some of their Rabbins all are not so immodest will have to be higher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then the Angels of Ministry far above all creatures as another expresses it both superiour and inferiour R. Joshuah F. Sobib in xxx Exod. As if they meant to equall him with that great Lord who we believe is raised far above every name that is named not onely in this world but also in that which is to come And because also our Lord we affirm and are sure is now the Minister of the heavenly Sanctuary where he presents his own bloud before God for us as Aaron did the bloud of beasts in the earthly Sanctuary therefore they likewise have feigned as Maimonides relates from the mouth of their Doctours * Ludov. Capell ex prâ—fat in Talm. Not. in xvii Matth. 3. that their Master Moses is not dead but ascended 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and ministers to God in the heavenly places And because our Lord is here said to be transfigured on this Mountain and his face shone like the Sun they have therefore transformed Moses also who they say was found by the Angel of death whom God sent to the Mountain whether he was gone up to take away his life writing the great Name of God and his face was as the Sun and he himself like an Angel of the Lord. I have observed the same before about the Bath kol voice from heaven which spake to our Saviour whose glory they study to eclipse by spreading abroad a number of tales concerning the like approbation given to their Doctours I am bold to call these reports by that name and to ascribe them to that cause because there are no footsteps of such things in the history which Moses wrote of himself who by all just ways endeavoured to beget in them a belief that he was a Prophet sent of God and because such inventions might easily come into the minds of those obstinate persons who knew not how to confute Christianity which interest and prejudice would not let them receive but were desirous by any means though never so false to raise Moses to the same degree of greatness and esteem with the Authour and finisher of our faith But it is to be considered then that they suppose such things to be a notable sign of the excellency of that person to whom they really belong and consequently that our Lord Jesus who hath these very marks upon him which they would ingrave on Moses being thus described in those Books that are certainly Divine among us as clearly as Moses is in any other regards commended in those that are truly holy among them is a Great Prophet indeed far greater then Moses who never durst say any such thing of himself nor is so magnified by any of the succeeding Prophets the Authour of a better Covenant and of more divine Promises such as this of ETERNALL LIFE which it is most agreeable for him to bestow whose Kingdom was not in this world as Moses's was but he reigns in the other world Lord of all for evermore III. To him God the Father hath given a third Testimony unto which it is now time to pass and it is a very express Record of this Truth that we have Eternall Life and that it is in his Son It is set down you know in the xii Joh. 28. where upon our Saviour's request to God that he would glorifie his own Name a voice from heaven gave this answer I have both glorified it and will glorifie it again The particle it hath nothing answering to it in the Greek but is put in by the Translatours to supply the sense And some are of the opinion that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be understood and the meaning to be thus rendred I have both glorified thee and will glorifie thee again But there is no need of this we may as well refer the word glorifie to Name as our translation doth and it will come at last to the same sense for God's name was glorified by glorifying his Son Fragment L. viii in Joh. as appears from xi Joh. 4. And so St. Cyrill of Alexandria observed
Israel And if we carefully enquite into it we shall find it to have been as clear a Witness that it is in his power and in his purpose to give Eternall Life to all his faithfull subjects I. For first the very end of its appearing was to invest him with the highest office and dignity which from this time he took upon him and exercised whereas before he had lived as a private person So you reade x. Act. 38. that he was anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power Which being a ceremony whereby Kings are created we are to understand that by the coming down of the HOLY GHOST he was appointed our Lord and Sovereign one part of whose office is to bestow rewards on those that doe him good and faithfull service Now his Kingdom not being of this World as he professed and as was apparent by his life and death and yet he constantly asserting that he was a King and exercising severall acts of Royall Authority as I have formerly proved we must conclude that by this Vnction he was designed to be a King in the heavens where he disposes of all places and preferments and will promote all his loyall subjects to the greatest honours and dignities There is no reason to doubt of it for the Glory of the Lord which at his Baptism descended on him so as it had never done on any man was the Seal or if you will the Crown of God upon him which markt him to be the Lord of Glory from whom we may expect the blessing of Eternall Life The very opening also of the Heavens at the descent of the HOLY GHOST upon him signified as much as St. Chrysostom thinks and was a plain declaration of the exceeding great favour of God towards us Who now open'd to us as he speaks * Homil. xii in Matthaeum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those gates above and sent the Spirit from thence to call us to our celestiall Country and not simply to call us but with the greatest prerogative for he hath not made us Angels and Archangels but making us the Sons of God and his beloved Sons so he draws us to that heavenly portion II. Which we may with the greater confidence expect because the HOLY GHOST as I observed heretofore not onely came down upon him but rested or took up its abode in him It did not onely overshadow him as the Glory of the Lord did the blessed Virgin but descending on him settled it self in him as its habitation insomuch that every day one might see the Glory of the Lord shining in him Thus John Baptist who was a carefull observer of it relates in i. Joh. 32 33. where he twice takes notice of the abiding and the resting of the HOLY GHOST with him In which Isaac Abarbinel himself in xi Isa a known enemy to Jesus confesses the excellency of Christ's prophecy consists This being one of the Ten privileges which the Messiah he saith shall be indued withall that the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him xi Isa 2. So it did upon our Saviour as an undoubted Prophet testified in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily and therefore He must needs have Life in himself and out of his fulness as St. John speaks we may expect to receive grace for grace For he that bad John baptize you may farther consider told him that this person who had the HOLY GHOST not onely descending on him but residing in him was He that should baptize men with the Holy Ghost Be a King that is in the heavens and have all power committed to him as he would demonstrate by sending the Holy Ghost upon others as now it came upon him And till that time came it was as visible as the Light wherein the HOLY GHOST appeared that it did inhabit in him by the constant sensible effects of his Divine power every-where St. Luke as I observed in the First Part remembers how he returned immediately from Jordan where he was baptized full of the Holy Ghost iv Luk. 1. As was manifest not onely from a number of miraculous operations but from the no-less wonderfull wisedom whereby he spake and opened the ancient Oracles of God For to this end also he was anointed and herein he exercised the authority of a King as the very first place of the Propheticall Books which he expounded clearly tells us iv Luk. 18 19. Where you may note that the great business for which he was anointed by the Spirit was to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. The time of grace that is wherein the good will and pleasure of God was shewn to the world which consists principally in giving remission of sins and eternall Life This he came to proclaim and publish with the power of the HOLY GHOST having all those divine gifts mentioned in xi Isaiah to qualify him for this high office four of which belong to the Mind and was well represented by that luminous body which came down upon him at his Baptism and one to the Will and another to the power of action viz. Wisedome Vnderstanding Counsel Might Knowledge and the Fear of the Lord. He was able on all occasions to speak most divinely to teach as one that had authority to evade all the secret plots which his adversaries had upon him to search into their very hearts and desires to shew the straight way to that bliss which he preached to foil all the power of the Enemy and to raise even the dead to life again Which were evident demonstrations that the Spirit of the Lord rested on him and made him the greatest Prophet that ever was not onely the Preacher but the Giver of ETERNALL LIFE III. For as by this power of the Holy Ghost it was manifest he had Life in himself so God's intention to give this Life to us was apparent from the manner of its descent which is said to have been like a Dove The phrase indeed is dubious and may signify onely that this glorious Body which came down from heaven was in its descent or falling like the coming down of a Dove with its wings spred abroad Yet since St. Luke saith that it came in a bodily shape and the Church though the words do not necessarily inforce it hath thus understood it we may most probably conclude the word Like hath relation not onely to the coming down but to the Dove it self telling us that the form or figure of this celestiall glory which now appeared carried the resemblance of that creature Now to think that this form was assumed without any design at all would be very contrary to common reason which leads us rather to conceive that God would shew at the very first entrance of our Saviour upon his office by this known emblem of meekness and love what great favour and kindness he intended to shew to mankind and with what a tender spirit of gentleness and sweetness our Lord should exercise the Ministry
and his wonders his mighty power and stretched-out arm all the grea◠acts of the Lord as they are called xi Deut. 7. which Chapter be pleased to reade unto that verse which were eminent tokens that GOD had taken the◠to be a peculiar or speciall people to himself as he frequently speaks and was able to fulfill his word to their Forefathers of giving them the Land wherein they were then strangers for their inheritance Just such as this is our case whom He hath called by his Son to an inheritance incorruptible and that fadeth not away reserved i◠heaven for us To obtain an eternall Redemption for us and deliver us out of the hands of all our enemies his own most precious BLOUD was shed as of a Lamb without spot or blemish Whereby also as you have heard he testified to the World that he was no Deceiver but came to them from God with the words of Eternall Life Many things concurred to make this BLOUD a witness of his Truth and of his power to fulfill his own promises And yet notwithstanding this was the very thing that offended many and kept them from following him They could not endure so much as to hear him speak of giving them his flesh to eat and his bloud to drink though he told them thereby he would give life to the World And therefore to strengthen this Testimony of his BLOUD and to convince them evidently that he was the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the World and gives life to it there was another Witness which attended it both before his BLOUD was shed and likewise afterward which was the SPIRIT That is as I shewed in the former Treatise on this subject the power he had to work wonders and the miraculous power which raised him from the dead and presented him to God in the heavens This was abundantly sufficient to prevent any offence they might take at Christ crucified and to settle in their hearts an unmovable belief that he was their mighty Redeemer who would bring them to the eternall Rest which he had promised For this is the last and greatest argument which St. John here produces ver 6. He came no◠onely by WATER but by BLOVD also and it is the SPIRIT that beareth witness for the SPIRIT is the Truth Or as Arias Montanus translates it the SPIRIT is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Witness that undoubted testimony on which we may certainly rely For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that SPIRIT which I speak of is truth an◠infallible Witness which cannot deceive you that Jesus is the Son of God And so it is likewise that Eternall Life is in him and that we shall enjoy it by his means for this RECORD of God is given to make us as sure of the one as we are of the other Let us briefly therefore consider first what his Miracles say to this and then secondly what force there is in his Resurrection and Exaltation to prove it I. And at our entrance upon the first of these let us before we go any farther weigh those words of this Apostle St. John in his Gospell xx 30 31. where he tells us that he wrote the signs which Jesus did suppose after his Resurrection in the presence of his disciples for this very purpose that they might believe that he was the Christ the Son of God and that believing they might have LIFE through his Name They were wrought by Him and recorded by his Disciples for these two ends that the World might be convinced He was the great Lord of all and that they might by faithfull subjecttion to him look for Eternall Life from his omnipotent love It was the design of all his wonderfull works throughout his whole life to which the Apostle may have respect as well as to those after his Resurrection to perswade men to believe that he would make his followers so happy For by these he manifested forth his glory as I observed before of the beginning of his Miracles in Cana of Galilee ii Joh. 11. and declared to the world he could work as great a change upon our mortall bodies as he did then upon the Water making them as much nobler then they are now as the Water excelled it self when it was become Wine They were mighty instances of his Power and of his Goodness too they made him appear to be the King of Israel who was to deliver and bring Salvation to them though much greater then they expected That our Lord did work Miracles is a truth which they that crucified him can no more deny then that he died The wisest of them could never find any colour to affirm that the Gospel-story was but a fabulous Legend which related Wonders that were never done For if they had been able to say this Maimonides the very best of them would not have been put to such distress as to let fall these words which we reade in his Treatise of Kings Cap. xi Do not imagine that the King Messiah shall have any need to work wonders or alter the course of Nature or restore the dead to life again with such like things that fools talk of Had he not known as well that these things could not be denied which are related of Jesus as he did that their force to prove any thing being granted they would be an unanswerable testimony to him he would never have thus slighted as he doth in many other Books things of this nature which brought the greatest reputation to Moses among their ancestours and were the cause why they believed on him though he attempted no such wonder as the raising dead men to life again Our Saviour he was not ignorant very often appealed to his works as the testimony of God to him and thought it sufficient to tell John's disciples when they came to inquire who he was that he opened blind mens eyes cleansed lepers and raised up the dead by which they might answer their own question And therefore something was to be said by this Jew to disparage these upon which he saw the credit of our Saviour in great part relied Now had it not been the readiest way to deny that there were such Miracles wrought Nothing but the notoriousness of the facts made him wave that course which drove him upon this wretched shift of denying utterly that Miracles are credible witnesses to him that works them By this means he thought to rob our Saviour of the glory they brought him and was so blind as not to see that at the same time he took away from his own Master the greatest support he had of his Authority And therefore herein he is deserted by his own Country-men particularly by Abarbinel who as I observed before makes the power of working Miracles one of the principall gifts of the Messiah In which our Lord it is apparent to his very enemies was so eminent that one cannot imagine why he did not believe on him unless with the
spitefull Pharisees he imputed all his Works to the Devill Which blasphemy I have shewn in the former Book is so manifestly confuted by his holy Doctrine and Life that they must be no less foolish then malicious who regard it We ask no more but to allow such things were done as the Gospell reports which they dare not deny us and then their great uncertainty what to say against them shews how forcible they are to convince all indifferent men that he came from God whose finger they were pointing them to him as the Person whom they should hear and obey And that they were a plain demonstration of his power to give Eternall Life to all his followers will appear from these following considerations I. If they confirmed all his Doctrine to be the Will of God then we ought to look upon this as firmly establisht by them for it was a known part of his Doctrine that God sent him to proclaim his purpose of giving everlasting life by him to all those who should believe on him vi Joh. 38 39 40. iii. 16. There is nothing in this assertion needs proof but that they confirmed his Doctrine this being it is apparent to all a constant part of it in which the Blind man thought he could presently satisfy any reasonable person when he said If this man were not of God he could doe nothing ix Joh. 33. That is no such Miracle as that was of opening the eyes of one born blind a thing the world had never heard of since it was first created till that time He preached nothing but piety and holiness He lived as he preached both his Sermons and his Conversation were above all that ever had been for Sanctity And his Works being so also much beyond the most famed Prodigies the world had ever boasted of it was an unanswerable argument that God was in him who was never known to have let such things be done before in the compass of so many Ages and therefore would not let them now doe their first Service to the countenancing of a lie And therefore to these our Lord often refers them as there was reason for a proof of his Divine Authority For if a false prophet could doe such wonders how should there be any possibility of ever knowing a true Reade x. Joh. 37 38. xiv 10. xv 24. That which is most proper for me to note is that in that xiv of St. John when he bids them look upon his Works as the best glass that then was wherein to see his Divinity he was discoursing on this very subject that He was the Life ver 6. and that He was going to the Father to live with him and to prepare a place for them c. ver 2 3. Of this he could not give them a better evidence then the Wonders he had wrought untill his Resurrection After which indeed he saith ver 12. they should doe greater works then these which would more plainly tell them that he was with the Father It will not be unprofitable if I open the whole discourse from vers 2. where he tells them with a solemn profession he would not abuse them that in his Father's house are many Mansions and that he was going away indeed from them but it was in order to prepare a place for them He departed he would have them believe not merely to go to rest himself after all his labours but to take up lodgings as one may say for them in that blessed Rest prepared for the people of God Now the consequence of this he tells them in the next words ver 3. And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto my self that where I am there ye may be also He assures them that is he would not lose the pains he had taken to procure such a happiness for them but see them safe there where they should have their share with him in that very bliss which he was about to receive And where I go ye know and the way ye know ver 4. As if he should have said You understand well enough what I mean for I have often spoke of these things I go to Heaven to live with God and to give life to those that believe on me which that you may not miss of I have shewn you both by my doctrine and my example the way that leads to it Alas replies one of his Apostles who seems to be the slowest of all other to apprehend his meaning or give credit to him Lord we know not whither thou goest and how can we find the way ver 5. No saith our Saviour to him again that is strange I my self am the Way from whom you might have learnt how to arrive at this happiness And that this is the true way which I have described you need not doubt for I am the Truth that is the teacher of truth who have demonstrated severall ways that what I declare is the very mind and will of God And the same arguments which prove me to be the Truth evidently shew also that I am the Life who will conduct you to that bliss unto which I am now going And no man cometh to the Father and that Eternall life which is with him but by me that is by believing my words and following my steps ver 6. And therefore if you had minded me and my words as it follows ver 7. If ye had known me ye would have known my Father also you would have known it is my Father's purpose to give you Eternall life And from henceforth sure you will not doubt of it now that I have revealed it so plainly that I may say you know him and have seen him Upon this Answer of our Saviour another of his Apostles wisht they might but see the Father and that would be sufficient ver 8. He desired that is there might be some such Divine appearance to them as there was to Abraham and others of the Patriarchs in old time and they would trouble him with no farther questions about this matter How saith our Saviour have I been so long with you and yet hast thou not known me Philip that is understood what kind of person I am Dost thou not see that I am the onely-begotten of the Father full of grace and truth the express image of his person and the brightness of his glory Was there ever such an appearance of God in the world as thou seest in me All the Fathers enjoyed was but a little glimpse of the Divine glory in comparison with that which now shines upon you in my face And therefore why dost thou ask to see the Father as if there was nothing of him in me I tell thee He that hath seen me hath seen the Father And so it follows ver 10. Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in me the words that I speak unto you I speak not of my self but the Father that
godliness Rom. vi Col. iii. which they supposed all Christians had already felt these men fansied there was no other affirming the resurrection was past and none to come If they had onely doubted of it the Apostle it is like would not have so sharply punished them no more then he did the Corinthians But they blasphemed as he expresly tells us of Hymeneus 1 Tim. i. 20. that is reproached this Doctrine as a foolish opinion and reviled it is like the Apostles who were the preachers of it And therefore he inflicted on them the most grievous punishment by delivering them up to Satan which was not so little as merely banishing them the Christian Society but turning them over to the power of the Devill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as unto a publick Executioner to torture and scourge them They are the words of St. Basil * Homil. in princip Proverb p. 439. with whom agree divers others of the ancient Doctours who think the Apostle speaks of surrendring such persons into his hands that he might inflict bodily diseases or pains upon them to humble and bring them down to submit to the Apostolicall doctrine when they felt the miraculous effects of their Authority For that 's the reason this punishment is called delivering up to Satan because it visibly appeared by some plagues on the body that they were faln under his power by being thrown out of the Church He was as a common Galoer and Executioner in a City or Kingdome the Apostles as the Magistrates and Governours as was said before sitting upon thrones to judge and pass sentence on men either by giving the Holy Ghost to those who sincerely believed or by delivering those to be tormented and set on the rack by this Evill spirit who blasphemed the Christian Religion There was then no other power in the Church to correct and punish them for so high a crime and this being done by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ as you reade 1 Cor. v. 4. was a notable testimony of the SPIRIT to the truth of Christianity and bad all men beware how they spake evill of this holy Doctrine especially of this fundamentall part of it that the Lord Jesus will give us everlasting life and raise us up at the last day The terrible execution which they saw done upon those who subverted this foundation of all piety was a great means to confirm all Christian people in the faith and to make them reverence those who had this mighty power either to give men ease or to torment them to restore men to life or to strike them dead to give them as was said before the gifts of the Holy Ghost or to put them into the possession of the Devill There is a great deal of difference it is observed by Tertullian * L. de Pudicitia c. xiii between an Angel of Satan sent to buffet a man and being delivered up or put into the possession of Satan himself To the former St. Paul himself was by the Divine permission obnoxious for his exercise 2 Cor. xii 7. The latter was the punishment of blasphemers and other horrid offenders for their cure But both served to give a testimony to our Saviour and to settle the hope of immortall Life For by the Angel of Satan which buffeted that is disgraced and vexed St. Paul a great many ancient Writers * S. Chrysostom Theodorer Photius apud Oecumen Ambros Theophylact understand those troubles and sore afflictions all sorts of injuries and reproaches which infidels and wicked men by the instinct of some of the Devil's agents tormented the Apostle withall Alexander the Coppersmith saith St. Chrysostom who did St. Paul so much mischief Hymeneus and Philetus all those that set themselves against the Gospell cast him into prison beat him drove him out of their cities were Ministers of Satan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because they did Satan's business who by such instruments laboured all he could to dishearten the Apostles and hinder the free course of the Gospell Here now appeared the mighty power of Christ which rested as the Apostle speaks or took up its dwelling in them 2 Cor. xii 9. They were never so strong as when they were thus afflicted Then they mightily prevailed and advanced the Kingdom of Christ by whose powerfull grace they endured all hardships and distresses courageously and demonstrated they had a strong and immovable hope of being with him in that blessed place unto which St. Paul was rapt just before this Messenger of Satan as we render it raised such a terrible storm of persecution against him By that glorious sight he was fortified against it and standing as firm as a rock himself confirmed others in that faith which made him so invincible that he gloried and took pleasure in all those infirmities and reproaches and necessities and persecutions and distresses which that Angel of Satan stirred up against him ver 9 10. That was all the Devill got by his ill usage of him which onely gave the Apostle matter of glory For when our Saviour pleased not to grant his desire of having this Angel removed but onely told him his grace should be sufficient for him immediately he adds that he would gladly glory more then ever in his afflictions Which plainly shews both what he meant by that Angel of Satan and how much hereby the Christian Religion was promoted and the Souls of believers strengthened in the faith They might easily believe he had been in the third heavens when they saw him so much superiour to all the power on earth and the powers of the air too who conspired to beat him down and oppress him All the art in the world could not so declare the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the unutterable words St. Paul heard which the impious Cainites and Gnosticks * Epiphan Haeres xxxviii in a Book of theirs called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning St. Paul's ascent pretended to relate as this inexpressible power of Christ residing in him and supporting him under the greatest miseries which declared those words remained still imprinted in his Mind And that other power of Christ whereby the Apostle delivered up high offenders to Satan that he might inflict plagues and diseases or aches and pains on their bodies as evidently shewed what a great Minister he was in Christ's Kingdom and how credible the Doctrine was which he preached to them For he was ready to revenge all disobedience with remarkable punishments and alledges this power as a proof of his authority in the next Chapter 2 Cor. xiii 2 3 4. If I come again I will not spare since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me He is not weak indeed towards you but is mighty in you having given by me exceeding great demonstrations of his power and my Apostleship xii 12. Yet since you are not convinced it seems by what you have seen already and desire a farther proof that Christ speaks in me you shall
God promised to send to rule over them He takes the Book out of the right hand of him that sate on the Throne ver 7. which signifies that he is next to God the Father of all at whose right hand he stood in power and glory As appears also by his being seated in his Throne for the thrones of the Eastern Kings to which these expressions allude were wide like one of our Couches in which more than one may sit and by his having the principal Angels the seven spirits of God at his command to imploy where he pleased Who together with the rest of the Heavenly host and with the Christian Church make their acclamations to him ver 11 12. as worthy of the most supreme power and dignity which they express in as many Names of praise as there are principal Spirits of God when they say Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive 1. power and 2. riches and 3. wisdom and 4. strength and 5. honour and 6. glory and 7. blessing And then immediately he hears every Creature joyning him in their Doxology together with God the Father saying ver 13. Blessing and honour and glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever But the more fully to represent his Divine power you may observe that he appears in another Vision to him in the very same state and majesty wherein God was wont to make himself present in the times of old Then you read that the Lord made the clouds his chariot and walkt upon the wings of the wind ciii Psalm 3. that is came to them by the ministery of Angels who appeared in bright and shining clouds to do his will with great expedition every where For so it is expounded in the xviii Psalm 10. where instead of clouds it is said He rode upon a Cherub and did flie yea he did flie upon the wings of the wind That is there was a token of his presence by the majestick appearance of Angels who were ready to be imployed by him and immediately to execute his commands For to ride upon any thing as Maimonides observes * More Nevoch Part. 1. cap. 70. is in the Holy Language to rule to govern to have an absolute power over it and dispose of it as one pleases And therefore to ride upon a Cherub or to make the clouds his chariot which are the very same because the Angels appeared in glorious clouds is to send those Heavenly Ministers whither he thinks good to perform his pleasure Whence it is I suppose that the Psalmist says elsewhere lxviii 34. his strength is in the clouds because he is powerfully present by them in all places For as Andreas Caesariensis hath truly observed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. in his Commentaries upon the Revelation a cloud in the Sacred writings is ever a Minister about Divine businesses and perpetually imployed in them because they are above us and are very swift as the Angels are in their motions and are both dark and bright a fit emblem of the glory of the Divine Majesty which is inscrutable by us Now just in such a glorious Majesty and mighty power did S. John behold our blessed Saviour making the clouds that is the Angels his chariot in which he sate as a Lord to whom they were to do service So he tells us in xiv Rev. 14. And I looked and behold a white cloud and upon the cloud one sate like unto the Son of man having on his head a golden Crown and in his hand a sharp sickle Where by cloud the forementioned writer understands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some Angelical power of which this white that is bright cloud was a representation ministring to our Saviour For S. John saw him upon this cloud and sitting there as if it were the Throne or Royal Chariot of this Prince Who sate there with a Crown on his head denoting his Royal authority and that of Gold to show by what is most precious among us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the splendour and greatness of his Majesty and with a sickle in his hand to signifie that he hath such a power as to be able to cut down Kingdoms and States with as much ease as we mow a field of corn All these three last expressions set forth the highest dignity and most royal power and therefore so doth his sitting upon a cloud or being carried by Angels as Kings were anciently and still are in the Eastern Countries by their servants Which kind of speech and other such like phrases in the holy Language as riding upon the wings of Angels denoted by the clouds and wind signifie the exercise of his Kingly power by their Ministry Who are ready to fly any whither to convey his orders and execute them throughout the world Where he being present by them as a King is by his several Ministers in every part of his Dominions he is said to sit upon them as if whither-soever they go they carried him Thus the ancient Books speak of God the Creator and Governour of all and thus our Saviour teaches S. John to speak of him which is a sign that he is the Son of God who sends forth the Angels to minister for them especially who shall be heirs of salvation And therefore in another Vision which is all I need mention xix Rev. 11 12 c. He saw him again coming out of Heaven with the Royal ensigns of his victorious power over those who had opposed his authority For behold a white horse which was proper for a conqueror and one sitting upon him whose name was called the WORD of God Who was clothed he tells us with a vesture dipt in bloud that is with a purple garment such as Kings use to wear and his eyes sparkled or rather flamed like fire to denote how terrible he was to his Enemies and there were on his head many Crowns because he had already conquered several Kingdoms and Provinces and was now going to subdue more being attonded with all the armies in Heaven who waited upon him to minister to him in this war till as he was of right he was actually acknowledged by humble subjection to him to be KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS And what greater argument can there be of the power of our Lord and of the truth of these Visions whereby the WORD of God who hath the lineaments of future things in his mind as Irenaeus speaks represented how God would hereafter dispose of the affairs of the world than his possessing himself of a Kingdom and perswading so great a part of mankind to submit to him though a King invisible merely by the preaching of such men as S. John The event hath proved it was no delusion when he heard those great voices in Heaven saying xi 15. The Kingdoms of this world are become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign for ever