conflict O how was the soul preserved when the body was forced to rain blood when every Pore gasped as if the soul meant to follow and he to die as often as it had places to expire at Indeed well it might for this single Death was conceived as a multitude of Deaths a Death for those that died before and after Behold a ghastly sight for he that never committed one sin to be charged with so many heaps of sin whose load could not chuse but be the heavier because Innoccency lay under and came so near to Guilt as to be punished the Cup of sower Grapes mixed with those thoughts burst out into billows of Sweat so that Floods ran over him Psal 69. Oh what bleeding was within when it streamed so without never was such a Sweat because never such a Cause no such heat but that of Hell Sin being the Fewel of both by whose vehemency each Pore became an Eye and each Member wept that by the tears of his whole body the whole body of his Church might be cleansed and yet his sufferance swells to the largest extent of Obedience exercised in sundry torments by all persons upon his parts Friend and Foe Jew and Gentile King Priest and People all joyn against him in the Front of which conspiracy comes Judas a Wolf trained up in the school of a Lamb with a Kisse Was ever such a salutation between God the Devil with a kisse doth this courteous blood-sucker kil his Masters Traytor Dost thou so kisse the Son lest he be angry Well take thy leave Judas never shalt thou come so near again this hanging about Christs neck shall cost thine own a worser hanging whilest Heaven and Earth for betraying him that came from both shall with vengeance thrust thee from them and leave thy Carcasse to thy new Master the Prince of the Aire It could not chuse but make his Enemies bold to see his Disciple so cruel who now prepare to kill the true Passeover though not for their own but our eating the seed of Abraham came out with Bills and Staves to take him who came down from Heaven to take the seed of Abraham and violently attach him with their hands whom they could not apphehend with their hearts They take him but as Sampson was taken by the Philistines to the losse and ruine of themselves both felt the God of Israel when they held him in bondage both smarted under their prisoner By tying his hands which might have loosed theirs they tied themselves in a double knot but that hindred not his proceeding who through Adams captivity through a rash freedome regained us liberty with a deliberate captivity Thus with bonds of liberty he travelled to Caiphas a man that went for a High Priest but first Murther must call in Annas his reverend Father-in-Law that so the generation of Vipers might be more allied in bloud After Annas Caiphas with good manners may be avillain a zealous counterfeit who having with deep conjuration wrung out the truth accuseth God himself of Blasphemie The watch word being given the servants are diligent in reviling him that never spake amiss they blind his eys challenge a Prophesie that so they might prove him a Seer by making him not to see they pluck off his hair Esay 5. 6. that no hair of us might perish threshing his cheeks with buffets wherein our offences have a hand Yet to all these reproaches he sets his face at a flint Esa 5. 6. as flint indeed from whence those smiters smore fire for their own Damnation The night being spent with those hellish Pastimes they benight the Day with Actions of Darknesse their fury hurries him to Pilate where the Scribes ommitting Blasphemie as an idle brangling before a secular Judge object him a Traytor against the God Caesar this killing Plea they keep till last and make it the first Argument of his guilt that They brought him as if their infallible Chair could neither erre nor slander whereas affectors of credit are most commonly Liars these holy Murtherers though by no meanes they will enter the Judgement Hall because of the Passeover nor be defiled with a place of bloud yet with a clear Conscience they prosecute that deed which defiles the place Pilate espying their malice makes a friend of a bad office shifts him over to Herod This King was more like a Courtier then himself a most Herod his Character curious piece of Vanity who after some discourse of stately impertinency would fain have God recreate his Highnesse with a Miracle Behold a Miracle of Patience Our Saviour returns him and his scoffs not so much as a word Silence is the best reply to a A speaking silence Babler which both secretly darts at the Conscience of the Adversary and retains the station of Meeknesse Our Saviour was often dumb as a Lamb his dumbnesse now hath made him white as a Lamb for Herod mocking him with a white Robe as a Candidate or suitor onely for a Kingdome unwillingly deciphers his integrity in its true colours thus attired he is tosled back again like a Tennis-ball to Pilate where death is little unlesse an odious comparison with Barrabas kill him double this of the two is the Goat which to the utter pollution of the Dismissers is set at liberty Gen. 16. and the destroyer of the living is thought more worthy of life then he that raised their dead Pilate being weary of being just against the stream delivers him to the place of crucifying to be scourged by souldiers a punishment ordained by the Romanes for small offences as the Axe for capital But Christ who suffered for our slips as well as for our crimes endured not onely the Crosse but scourging a punishment most suitable to the nature of sin whereof any Act though never so little makes as many breaches in the Law is the lash imprints in the body When the whip had launced our Saviours flesh their own humour bad Commands are still over-done proceeds to scorn him in state and inviting the multitude to their pettulant fury they repeat what was done last night with advantage with thorns they crown his head not remembring the Parable of Jotham that fire might come out of the Bramble All Crowns are thornie and the Heathenish Sacrifices used to be crowned but when this Sacifice of Jew and Gentile is crowned with thorns when his head is tyed in the thickets is not this the Oblation that was slain for Isaac and all the flock of the Faithfull Next in ridiculous honour they invest him in a Purple garment Why should their spight be at such charges the white Robe now clapt on his bleeding Members would soon take the dye of a better Purple But to make him a compleat mock-Emperour with bended knees they gave him a Reed for a Scepter Innocent King herein thy obedience is most remarkable for whereas other members were meerly passive here the hand was made an instrument of its own shame
Darius would not be drawn to look upon his daughters Chap. 5. c. Chap. 6. Sect. 2. The proportion of our bodies probably proving the reasonablenesse of our souls V Chap. 1. c. Chap. 2. c. Chap. 3. VItellius board Chap. 4. Sect. 4. Vain verses and Ribauld talk Chap. 5. Vainness of Women in their Attire Chap. 6. Vigour cannot be in assum'd or counterfeit bodies The end of the Table DISCOVERIES CHAP. I. That the Angels know both what hath been and what is done here on Earth SOme of latter times tells us of a wonderfull Glasse wherein the saints and angels behold whatsoever is done nay whatsoever is thought in the Church below I know not how we may be sure that that Glasse is of Gods making and if it be not it must needs be a false one but if they mean by that glasse a special Revelation making known to those blessed spirits whatsoever may redound to the honour of the Trinity by their knowledge we may safely take them at their words for though God conceal the works of his goodnesse mercy truth and holinesse already past I make no question but his glorious Redemption admirable Dispensation and all other occurrent favours meeting â—â—gether in one center for the good of those appointed to Salvation have been and are always revealed to the whole Court of Heaven SECT II. Whether by the light of Reason onely Salvation may be purchased There hath not wanted those who have peremptorily affirmed an opinion in these our days too much prevaent That all of all nations and people shall be saved and conducted in this manner to heaven The Jews by Moses the Christians by Christ the heathen by Mahomet As I affirm not that the light of naturall reason is enough to save a man so on the other side I dare not aver that none at all were saved till the 15 year of Tiberius and that heaven was quite shut up till after Christs passion were an assertion befitting the mouth of Sergius the Maniche that vouched it against St. Augustine I conclude that all that died of old were saved by a prioristical knowledge of Christ and that it is at the entrance of the heavenly Jerusalem as it was at Christ entrance into Jerusalem below you shall read that those that went before as well as those that came after cried Hosanna to the son of David i. e. save we pray thee oh Messiah incarnate SECT III. The strange opinions of the Iewish Rabbins concerning the resurrection no difficulty therein in respect of God Ask the Jewish Rabbins how the Read more of this Cha. 6. §. 3. resurrection of our bodies shall be wrought and they will tell you of a certain little bone in spina dorsi in every mans back that shall never be subject to any putrefaction and they will find you text for it too in 3. 4. Psal where 't is said he keepeth all their bones so that one of them unum ex ijs as they make the Prophet speak shall never be broken and this bone say they at the last day shall be mollified and softned by a dew from heaven and it shall swell as having the nature of Leven and it shall diffuse its vertue to the collecting of all the dust that belongs to its own body and so fit and prepare it for a resurrection I shall not be so audacious as to passe a definitive sentence or positively to determine how this to humane reason incredible resurgation is effected I had rather make Ezekiel my Oracle who gives the manner how thus he shal breath upon the slain and they shal live Authors of unquestionable repute and dayly experience informs us that the juyce of herbs and minerals extract are of sufficient force to restore sick persons Apio the Gramarian Pliny na hist by the power of Cinocephalia revived Homer how facile then may we conclude it for the supream Architector and Gubernator of the earth by his word alone to actuate an universal resurrection and that though the bodies of all mankind were crumbled into dust and that dust scattered before the wind or were they distilled into water attenuated into ayr or though they were eaten by Canibals and those Canibals devoured by fishes and those fishes by men again I say though they had all these dispersions and alterations and transmigrations yet were they still in the store-house of a powerfull God to whom the whole world is but as one repository or larger cabinet and all the elements but severall drawers in that great frame and those lesser creatures the craws of Ravens bellies of fishes and intrails of beasts but as smaller boxes included in the greater so that wheresoever we shall be laid God will know where to find us though our bodies may be hid to sense yet they are not lost to him he that called us at first out of nothing can by the same mighty voice raise us again from nothing SECT IIII. Yet of the same The Jewish Rabbins tell us of three keys that God keepeth always in his own hands the Key of the Womb whereby he lets us into this life the Key of the Clouds by which he nourisheth and refresheth us with rain and the Key of the Resurrection by which he loseth us from the prisons of death and gives us entrance into a new life I willingly grant the Key of the Resurrection to be in Gods power onely for Christ is that key Clavis Resurrection is as Tertullian calls him he shall open and bring us out of our graves as the Prophet Ezekiel speaks The wiser sort of heathens believed a resurrection and a restitution of our bodies but then they thought the stars and the Planets by whose decay and continuance they measured the stability and perpetuity of all sublunary things to be the onely causes of it and so they ran giddily into Platos circulation of years CAAP. II. That we cannot conscienciously censure the ancient Heathen Sages as damned NOt onely St. Chrisostome but many other of the fathers have set open a dore for Socrates Aristotle c. to enter into heaven by Philosophy alone and Causabon in his animadversions upon Baronius saith that those places in the fathers which seem to look that way are candida interpretatione mollienda to find a favorable interpretation with us since it were not pious in us to improve an uncharitable opinion of them for their perhaps over charitable opinion of the heathen As I dare not therefore with Iustin Martyr rank Socrates and Heraclitus in heaven and as I cannot think Aristotle by writing his books de Coelo hath himself gained a place there so neither dare I passe the sentence of eternal damnation upon them it were sacriledge in any man to rob them of Gods mercy which is over all his works and who is he that shall presume to set bounds to the overflowing Ocean of his compassion to say unto it thus far shalt thou go and no further for might not
it by the creation of any new Arguments but onely by the resurrection and reviving of the old Let it be given out that his Disciples came by night and stole him away while they slept none but a besotted Jew given over to believe lies can The Jewes contradict themselves credit it for if the Watchmen were asleep how could they tell that his Disciples stole him 〈◊〉 if they were nor asleep why would they suffer his Disciples to steal him And besides who can beleeve that his Disciples a poor disconsolate and forsaken company Doves under the tallons of the Jewish Vultures and Romane Eagles should adventure upon a guarded Sepulcher to brave a band of armed Souldiers Can you think that they who before he was crucified stole for fear themselves away would now adventure to steal him away that they that could not watch with him before one hour at prayer should now watch whole nights to steal his body from the Grave And if they had stollen him what did they expect but a body as dead and livelesse as their own hopes Thus when such strange impossibilities are brought to back it a lie doth confute it self and blinded malice helpeth to establish confirm the truth nor by such forgeries as these is our Belief any whitshaken but rather ratified and confirmed But and this is the main Objection of our present Sadduces an exemplary cause is not enough this demonstrates neither a power nor a will in Christ to do it a pattern cannot raise me I may have the Map or the Copy of the Universe yet by that Map by that Copy not be able to make another I may see the picture of Christr Resurrection upon a wall but that will no more raise me then it will make me valiant to read of Hannibal Caesar Alexander Objects have a moving and attracting power in them but no forcing casualty the heavens are a fair sight but they cannot make a blind man see no more can a bare pattern raise a dead man from the Grave I Answer That besides this there is a proper efficacy in Christ an Influence distilling from him the head to us the members a dew on our souls and a dew on our bodies such a dew as will make a withered soul and a dead bodie revive again Our Saviour who raised himself from his Monument shall be the cause of our Resurrection he is the root we are the branches if the root live the branches will spring forth and it is no absurd conclusion he is risen and therefore we shall rise Christs resurrection and ours are links of the same chain pull one and all will follow if there passed such a power from his cloaths why not such a power from his resurrection Now Christ who had depositum carnis nostrum as Tertullian saith by raising up himself hath given us a pledge and an assurance that he will us raise also so that he may raise in us a belief and an assurance of it he hath given us many types and emblemes of it in the book of Nature it is writ in every field we walk in Consider the Lillies and al flowers how they die and grow fresh again corruption is the chiefest cause of their continuance the earth also receives not the seed but to restore it again Sect. III. That the Angels are always conversant with us here below c. St. Paul though he gave a sufficient reason for the covering of women in the Church because of the Angels and their reverence for they are every where they pitch round about us Yet if our eys were opened like Gods servant or closed up either That the Angels are always conversant with us in a holy dream like Iacob we should behold them ascending and descending descending from the Presence-Chamber of the great King and ascending up with our requests again descending to comfort our desires to illuminate our understandings Inter sunt Cantantibus adjunt Orantibus in sunt Meditantibus saith St. Bernard When we sing they make up the Quire with us when we offer up our Orisons they hover about us c. and which is more they joyn in the first Petition of the Lords Prayer with us Sect. IIII. The equality of Gods Iustice observable many instances out of Scripture and other Authors It is usuall with Iehovah to sute and proportion the punishment according to the offence of the sinner that many times the judgement is but as it were an anagram of the sin so that you may easily read the offence in the punishment God doth retalliate to sinners pay them as we say in their own coin The Aegyptians they drown all the males of the children of Israel and they themselves their master Pharaoh and all his host perish in the red sea Corah Dathan and Abiram opened their mouths against Moses and Aron the Lords anointed King and Priest and the earth presently opened her mouth and swallowed them up Sodom burned with unnaturall lust and they were burned up with fire that a shower of brimstone should descend from above and a shower of fire from that which is naturally water that hell it seif should come down from heaven is a prodigie onely exceeded by the sin that caused it Adombezek that had taken the 70 Kings and barbarously cut of their great toes had his own toes cut off soon after and it wrung from him this expression As I have done so hath God requited me Iudg 1. 7. Because Moab burned up the bones of the King of Edom therefore God burnt up Moab And the Jews that bought Christ of Iudas for thirty pence at the sacking of Jerusalem by the Roman Emperour Titus 30 of them were sold for a peny Herodias that by her lascivious dancing procured Herod to cut of St. Iohn Baptists head had her own head cut off by the breaking of the ice as she passed over a river Nicephorus Eccles Hist lib. 1. chap. 20. Hatto that mercilesse Bishop of Ments who set fire on his barn where many poor people were congregated to get relief for their hunger and burned them up like Vermine was himself followed with troops and armies of mice and rats who found him out though immured in a strong Castle seated in the midst of a river and falling on him devoured him to the bones Munster relates he story at large in the third book of his Cosmotgraphy SECT V. Concerning Christs resurrection two Queres For Christs resurrection whether when he rose his humane soul came and united it self to the body by its own motive faculty or else assisted by the power of the Deity Whether his body penetrated the Tomb-stone or whether the Angels that removed it were ministerial in it and furtherers of his Resurrection SECT VI. Enquiries in referrence to our own Resurrection c. For our own Resurrection Whether we shall not rise all of one age about 32 which we have good ground to think because it is said in Ephes 5. Till wee come
the Ree◠dashed against thy head shews thy sufferings to be the doings of thy own Scepter In this variety of torments I find no women save onely one whom the Devil to preserve his old slight of tempting had set on Peter Eve the cause of all had done enough already and such hands were to weak for the Jews hate which required the utmost vigour of bloody souldiers but out Saviour having tyred them also Pilate who thought it mercy to use him thus cruelly presents him in his wofull formalities to move compassion Behold the man alas alas the King is this a Competitioner for a Caesar they like hounds having fastened upon the prey and comming again to full gaze yell out with full cries Crucifie him Crucifie him Since then Iustice is turned to a cry Esay 3. I appeal to you behold the man a man so torn in all his parts that no part can be known by it self but by the property of its torture Behold his head tented with thorns his cheeks macerated with buffets his face chequered with blood and spittle his hand behold with a Reed his back plowed over with stripes O that ye would behold what words hath stounded his ears what swords have passed through his soul shall yet the spear rip up his side shall yet the nail pierce his feet shall this man be crucified Behold him again and then behold your selves how many Jews are in each of you since each of you have procured al these outrages hear the cry of your selves Crucifie him Crucifie him well if he must die if the same Judge having thrice pronounced him innocent must in the same breath condemn Christ and himself his willingnesse is as ready as the necessity is urgent let him become obedient unto Death Phillip 2. 8. But could the Creatot die and be brought himself so near that nothing out of which he breathed all things No Death being onely a Divorce of the natural parts could not separate the Godhead the man onely died the person was but in a sound the commerce and influence of the whole Divinity like the Spirits in a falling Disease did not vanish but retire that astonishing voice My God my God why hast thou for saken me infers no more For how should God and Man be accorded by him who suffered a dis-union of God and Man in himself all this was but a sharp pull of his former Agony where an Augel did then chear him but now he is forsaken of all induring the height of Anguish in the end of Life that we might receive the greater comfort in the point of Death And hereby he gives his enemy the fiercest blow at last while he stretcheth himself and roars over the prey as it became the Lion of the Tribe of Juda. But what had Death to do to punish when Baptism had nothing to wash 〈◊〉 his seeming ☞ contradiction is the main thing of our Salvation For if Death be the wages of sin and sin be not in Christ it remains that our sins put him to death which he discharges as a Surety not as a Debter Adams Disobedience in the easiest Command is recompenced by Christs Obedience in the hardest Injunction for Obedience consisting in the renowning our selves is most eminent in Death There is a Death in Death which makes it more then Death the Jews malice and our Saviours obedience are well met to entertain it both which emulate each other So habituate and obdurate themselves that they forgetting their Splcen may now beleeve they do justice and Christ were he any besides himself might think he died deservedly Could any Tyranny have startled his Obedience the Crosse had done it whose gripes are implyed to be infinite while their Eury is here matched as an even measure with the Patience of God Behold yee that passe by Was ever sorrow like this sarrow Jer. 1. 21. A sorrow that might be felt by looking on felt by that which had no feeling The Earth was moved at his constancy it fell a shaking when his hands were Why the Earth shook at our Saviours Passion fastened it reeled and staggered when it missed his feet whose touch supported it One timely wound at the heart had been a friendly murther But when all the extream parts are beset with distinct killings yet none so kind as to dispatch him when the nail onely tortures not destroying the part but deading the sense making Death live the Crosse it self must needs be the onely Pulpit to expresse Anguish But why all these stations Tardiora sunt remedia quem mala It is easier to spill then to gather to marre then to mend In mans creation and fall God and Divels were quick at work but when it comes to redemption how many premises how many ages of expectance what growth what preparation what lingring execution must joyn to finish the Sacrifice for should our Saviour have made hast in his task it would have filled us with wonder rather then thanks and would have relished more of power then love but great must his love be when he dwels on his pain when he delights in sorrow and huggs it instead of them he loves Whilest his body was thus afflicted the Jews took care that his soul should not be idle who provided a punishment mixed with as much shame as smart for although the Crosse had never been made infamous by the communion of Slaves yet how shamefull it was might be read in his own countenance the seat of shame he enjoyed not here the priviledg of others Death the face was covered with nothing but shame and to its greater confusion it beheld the bodies nakedness the first object of shame not in secret as our first Parents did but before a cloud of insulting scorners such as durst mock him when he was clad in purple it is true our Saviour had no cause of shame in himself yet Innocency may be dipt in a blush as well as guilt not for any conscions ground in its own bosome but a timerous suspition of sinister thoughts in others which made the Sun remember its duty in cloaking him from shame who cloathed it with light seasonably denying his beams in a time unseasonable The Statists of the Synagogue well knew what they ask'd when they they ask'd for a crucifying in death they stroke at his life in the death of the Crosse they aimed at his name they that hated his Doctrine more then his person slew him but to come at his memory in murthering which they might ever raise a continuall slaughter not onely on him but on all those that should follow so vile a master this wooden engine was a stumbling block to the Jew and Gentile to whom it seemed incredible that the author of life should die so base a death again that such a death should be the spring of life it appeared a greater riddle then that the honey should be hived in a carkass but we know how the disgrace of this