yeeld place unto Christ That the sin of Adam lost those that came after him but the death of Christ hath saved both them that went before and came after it As therefore the first Adam hath caused to die those which were born many ages after him so the second Adam hath quickned them which were dead many ages before him And this hath been one of the causes of the retarding of his coming to wit that he would shew his power working backward to the foregoing ages And finally That it was convenient before Christ died to make it known to the world that the expiation of sins could not be wrought any other way To this effect God proposed first the blood of beasts in Sacrifices afterward the blood of man in Circumcision afterward an infinite number of washings with all the works of the Law as if he would that men should assay all the means which could be imagined for the expiation of sins But this was to the end that they should acknowledge their impotency and should cast their eyes upon the future Sacrifice of Christ Now it was requisite that a good part of the age of the world should passe in the studie of these rudiments before God should send his Son Gal. 4.1 c. An admirable concurrence of the time of Redemption with the times of the most famous Ceremonies of the Law An observation upon this subject It concerneth us that we know the Yeer the Season the Days yea the Hours in the which Christ perfected the work of the Redemption The Law hath marked certain Times as notable among all others Among Yeers that of Jubilee which returned from fifty to fifty yeers in the which servants were set at liberty and lands alienated returned to their first owners Among the annual Feasts that of the Passeover which was the first and principal of all the solemnities of the yeer Among the Days the Sabbath of which the preeminencies are sufficiently notorious Among the Hours of the day that between the two vespers which we reckon the third after noon in which every day was offered the evening Sacrifice which was the conclusion of all daily Ceremonies Exod. 29.39 and in which also was slain the Paschal Lamb when his yeer-day was come Exod. 12.6 Now the Redemption met in all these times in the Yeer of Jubilee in the Passeover in the Hour of the Evening Sacrifice and in the Sabbath In the Yeer of Jubilee according to the most exact Chronologie which reckoning every fiftieth yeer after the division of the Land of promise to the yeer in which Christ died findeth that he suffered in the yeer of Jubilee in the Passeover as it is evident by the History of the Passion in the Hour of the Evening Sacrifice which the Jews called the ninth hour in the which Jesus Christ gave up the Ghost And finally in the Sabbath our Saviour all that day resting in the Sepulchre I know that many long time agone have considered all these particularities but in parcels every one separately That which I here observe is the general concurrence of all the times the most famous in the Law with the time of the Redemption which comprised and determined all To all this I will adde this Observation The yeer of Jubilee began the tenth day after the Equinoctial of September Levit. 15.9 and Jesus Christ died a few days after the Equinoctial of the Spring following Whence it appeareth that he died in the midst of the yeer of Jubilee between the six first months and the six last But the last six months which his death anticipated have been disjoyned from the precedent as appertaining no more to the yeer of Jubilee which hath been cut asunder in the middle that it might be rendered wholly dead A mysterious reason of the name which the Apostle giveth to the Sacrifice of Christ calling it A Sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour Ephes 5.2 Many read these terms of the Apostle without knowing the importance nor seeing at what they aim The common Expositours will be contented to tell us that the Sacrifice of Christ is of a good smell that is to say pleasing to God We know that this is true but to know it well we ought to learn from whence the Apostle fetched this phrase and what it is at which he looketh back It behoveth therefore to observe that there were two kindes of Oblations under the Law One sort was accompanied with a perfume of Incense which was burned with them and for this cause they are called Offerings of a sweet savour Levit. 2.2.9 The others howsoever approved by the Law bare not the name of Oblations of a sweet savour because they were without perfume Levit. 2.12 And particularly it is to be noted that it was forbidden to burn any perfume upon the Oblations which were presented for sins Levit. 5.11 in which the Law-giver gave to understand that the memory of sin yea the Sacrifices which mentioned them were not of a sweet savour Numb 5.15 Upon this we are to consider why the Law declared that that which was offered for sins could not be of a sweet savour seeing that Christ was offered for sins and yet his Oblation was of a sweet savour to God his Father The reason is that the Legal Oblations removed not at all the infection of the sin which they represented rather themselves remained burdened with it But Christ bearing our sins upon him vanquished and carried away this corruption This point furnisheth us with an invincible argument against the Jews By the own sentence of the Law all the Expiatory Offerings which it prescribed failed of a sweet favour and could not content the justice of God From whence it followeth otherwise we are for ever miserable that there is another kinde of Offering another Sacrifice of Expiation quite other then those of the Law which abolisheth the stench of our crimes And this quality cannot appertain but to the body of Christ Isai 53 5 6. The Resurrection of CHRIST Nine examples of the Resurrection of the dead which have gone before or followed the Resurrection of Christ An Harmony between those that were raised under the Old Testament and those that were raised by the Son of God while himself was yet mortal THe Wisdom of God hath shewed the Resurrection of the dead in divers examples which it hath distributed with order and proportion Three before the coming of Jesus Christ Three by Jesus Christ himself before his death And Three after the Resurrection of Jesus Christ Before the coming of Christ God raised the son of the widow of Sarephta the son of the Shunamite and one dead man that had been cast into the Sepulchre of Elisha 1 King 17. 2 King 4 and 13. Jesus Christ before his death raised the son of the widow of Naim the daughter of Jairus and Lazarus Luke 7.15 Matth. 9. Joh. 11. After the Resurrection of Christ God hath first caused to be seen that of many Saints
us that the most bloody adversaries of the children of God are not dispensed but by his order Among the resemblances between Moses and Christ the one of which gave the Law the other brought the Gospel there is one notable likenesse that is that the birth of both of them was made memorable by the death of innocents That of Moses by the cruelty of the Egyptians who drowned in the water the children of the Hebrews That of Christ by the barbarousnesse of Herod who caused the cutting of the throats of the children of Bethlehem Why in War the people of God have been often beaten by their enemies and why a good cause hath been overthrown Run thorow the holy History All the times that the people of God have been overcome in War you shall finde that this hath come to passe through their own fault to wit either because they have undertaken a War without cause as Josiah who quarrelled with the King of Egypt Or because they have concluded upon a War without enquiring at the mouth of God as the Israelites against the Tribe of Benjamin Or that they have fought against the expresse prohibition of God as the Hebrews that set upon the Amalekites encamped on the mountain Numb 14. Or because they have abused a precedent Victory as the children of Israel who having purloined of the accursed thing of Jericho were presently after beaten by the inhabitants of Ai Or for having consulted with the enemy of God as Saul who had recourse to a Sorceresse to learn what successe the battel should have Or for having broken the faith given to the enemy as Zedekiah who brake the agreements past between him and Nebuchadnezzar Or in sum by putting themselves out of the protection of God as the Israelites in the days of Eli the Priest to whom the contempt of Religion caused the losse of that lamentable Battel in which the Ark of God it self was taken and carried in triumph by the Philistines In most of these examples we may see that a good cause hath been vanquished but with reason The justice of the cause hath come to nothing through the injustice of them that managed it or through the injustice of the proceedings Sometimes also two parties that make War together may both have a just cause in part although one of them may have the lesse right of the two The Wars which the Christians have moved against Mahomet have had for their cause the honour of the Name of Christ On the other side Mahomet declareth that he hath taken arms to avenge the honour of God defiled by the Idolatries of Christians This cause which is but too true in regard of many men hath given him so many Victories over Christendom Why God never sent above one Angel or two at most when he intended to destroy men and hath often sent many when he intended to preserve one man Three Angels came to Abraham to promise him the birth of Isaac but there were but two which went to destroy Sodom To protect one Elisha an army of Angels appeared in the likenesse of charets of fire but to put to death one hundred fourscore and five thousand men in one night in the camp of Sennacherib to cause to die of the Pestilence seventy thousand in three days by reason of the sin of David who had numbred the people to destroy all the first-born of Egypt in an hour God employed not above one Angel Whence cometh it that to protect one man alone God sendeth sometimes whole legions of Angels and to destroy thousands of men yea whole Nations he sendeth but one Angel Surely the Angels were created for the preservation of men not for their destruction And although God useth them for the execution of his judgements neverthelesse to shew that this is as by accident and beyond the scope of their creation he never employeth above one or two when the businesse is to destroy man where on the contrary he employeth many when it is to save The Psalmist was not ignorant of this Divinity For when he prayeth against his enemies he desireth that the Angel of God the Angel in the singular number might persecute them Psal 35. But when he promiseth to the faithful the protection of God He shall give saith he his Angels charge over thee We know that in another place he speaketh in the singular of the Angel that encampeth about them that fear him and that often God is content to send onely one Angel to defend a great number of men But withal he hath often used the service of many Angels to this effect whereas to destroy man he never would employ in any occasion above onely one Angel or two at the most If man had persevered in original justice there had never been Miracles but onely of one kinde Miracles have been wrought to convince the incredulity of man and therefore they had not been at all necessary if man had not first become incredulous Besides Miracles have been wrought to teach men that which all Nature together knew not how to teach them to wit the benefit of Redemption which presupposeth the fall of man Certainly if man had remained in his first integrity he had never seen the waters of the deluge nor Lot's wife turned into a statue of Salt nor any of all those wonders which have served to chastise man Neither had he seen those miraculous healings nor the dead raised for neither death nor diseases which have furnished the subject of these Miracles had had any place in the state of innocency The onely kinde of Miracle which God would have shewed unto man if he had stil persisted in his integrity had been according to all probability to transport him at the last from earth to heaven without passing thorow death And this is a notable point that after the Creation God wrought no Miracle till the translation of Enoch who was carried up from earth to heaven God began his Miracles with that kinde of Miracle which onely ought to have had place if man had still continued righteous Of JESUS CHRIST A consideration of the divers Names and Titles of our Saviour And the differences that ought to be observed in expressing them VVHen we name him sometimes we call him onely Jesus sometimes we say Jesus Christ sometimes we say onely Christ sometimes we call him Our Lord sometimes we joyn all these names together Our Lord Jesus Christ sometimes we say The Son of God Now it seemeth indifferent by which of these Names we call him and we pronounce the first that cometh in our mouth But howsoever all these names designe the same Person neverthelesse every one of these doth not mark out to us all the qualities and relations which we consider in that person rather one signifieth him in one regard and another hath to it self also a particular meaning So that these Names ought not to be used confusedly or without choice but we are to pronounce that or those
among them which have relation more to the subject of which we treat If we speak of him who hath saved us the name of Jesus is appropriate to him If the question be of the means by which he hath saved us they are comprised under the name of Christ If we mention his Commandment we should say This is the Ordinance of the Lord. If we consider him as authour of the communion which we have with his Father there presenteth it self to us the title of the Son of God There are also other subjects to every one of which there may be referred one or more of these titles It will be said upon this The Scripture it self doth not observe these distinctions useth these names indifferently upon every occasion Now I confesse that in so great a multitude of passages of the New Testament in which these names are repeated it is impossible to say why one is rather expressed then the other Yet there are some reasons And then when all these names or the greater part of them are found joyned together it is to expresse the plenitude and perfection of him to whom all these titles appertain In the History of the Gospel he is almost everywhere called Jesus without other epithet or attribute because this was the onely name which men gave him while he conversed in the world The man whom they call Jesus said the man that was born blinde Joh. 9.11 Sometimes the Apostles themselves call him Jesus of Nazareth but this is when they speak to the Jews who called him so This language would not be so convenient at this day I passe by a question which might be moved Why the Apostle Philip. 2. saith that every knee shall bow at the name of Jesus And why he doth not say at the name of Jesus Christ nor at the name of the Lord Jesus A reason might be given But for the rest We adore not the syllables but him that is represented by that name And the Name of Christ or the Name of the Son of God are no lesse venerable then then the Name of Jesus But I am to make an observation against the ordinary practice of Christians and of the greater part of Preachers themselves When they pronounce the name of Christ alone this is either by way of abbreviation or else by way of custom without thinking whether it be to purpose to say onely Christ or to say Jesus Christ or Our Lord Jesus Christ It is therefore to be noted that when the Scriptures speak of his sufferings and his death ordinarily they give him none other then the onely name of Christ Christ is dead Christ hath suffered It was necessary that Christ should suffer The sufferings of Christ c. This may be forasmuch as the name of Christ includeth that of Priest which is the quality in which Christ offered himself to death The Apostle Rom. 6.8 11. saith that we are dead with Christ but living in Jesus Christ our Lord. I know that there may be opposed some exceptions yet in every one of them there is a particular cause why one of those Names is rather used then another I will produce one example There is no man that thinketh he speaketh amisse when he saith The Supper of Christ or The Supper of Jesus Christ And of a truth this is not an heresie but neverthelesse it is an impropriety For if we will speak according to the Scripture we should say The Supper of the Lord not The Supper of Jesus Christ This is a particularity remarkable that in the whole description of the Supper exhibited by the Apostle 1 Cor. 11. and in all the discourse which he maketh of this subject and the authour of it he never giveth other name then that of The Lord. The Supper of the Lord I have received of the Lord that which also I have delivered unto you The Lord in the right in the which he was betraid took bread You shew the Lords death The cup of the Lord The body and blood of the Lord Not discerning the body of the Lord. I forbear to speak why in all this deduction the name of Christ is not once mentioned and that of the Lord is continually expressed But this example teacheth us that we ought to use discretion even then when we pronounce the titles of him to whom God hath given a name above every name Wherefore Jesus who received the Sacraments as well of the one as the other Testament had not that external Anointing which was given to Prophets Priests and Kings He received the Sacraments common to the whole Church to shew among many other reasons the communion which we have with him And for other causes he would not have that material Unction which was particular to certain persons Not the Royal anointing which was a mark of a temporal dominion whereas the Kingdom of Christ is of another nature Not the Priestly that was for Aaron for the Priesthood of Christ is not of that order but according to the Order of Melchizedek Not the Prophetical for when one Prophet anointed any other to be a Prophet by this action he declared him his successour So Elâ—sha was anointed to succeed Elijah But our Soveraign Prophet who preceded all the Prophets succeeded none of them and therefore ought not to receive their Unction Whence cometh it that divers discourses uttered by Jesus Christ seem to be without method And an admirable secret which ought to be observed The History of the Gospel reciteth unto us divers Sermons other excellent discourses which Jesus Christ made when he conversed among men Now we may observe that in the same discourse Jesus Christ passeth oftentimes from one matter to another which is very far distant and seemeth to be quite beside the subject It seemeth to us to see pieces brought from several places ill joyned and without any dependance or tie one with another Expositours labour hard to finde the contexture thereof but their ordinary Logick which they bring with all their Analyses can never attain it I passe by that Jesus Christ preaching had the perfection of Divinity We have but the shreds of this Science a little scantling of this great piece and some few drops of that Ocean but in Christ are inclosed all the treasures of wisdom Now he had the entire body and we have but a few parcels so his style hath other rules and other measures then ours But behold the secret which we ought here to consider Jesus Christ saw the thoughts and the hearts of those to whom he spake If an Oratour had this advantage to see the thoughts of them that hear him he would apply himself to them rather then to the ordinary rules of his Rhetorick which knoweth not this method This desultory style which we see in the discourses of Jesus Christ hath been often occasioned by the thoughts of his hearers According as these were formed in them he addressed himself to them and according as others thoughts
speak so as Hezekiah spake when he believed he should die Isai 38 or as David Psal 6. It is a matter of astonishment that these great men have been so exceeding fearful of their departure out of this world Here I passe by the particular causes from whence proceeded this weaknesse But in general before that Jesus Christ died death was more dreadful then it hath been since for as yet death was not swallowed up in Victory and the faithful of the Old Testament had not the example of Jesus Christ dead as we have The fear of death therefore was more just in them then it can be in us From whence it followeth that it is not still permitted to us to speak as they did when we are menaced with death It would be very hard to approve that a Christian should complain of this that he should no more behold God in the land of the living and that he is deprived of the conversation of this world or to alleadge that he might not die that the dead praise not God These complaints and the like discourses which the Fathers of the Old Testament have uttered upon this subject have no more place since that Christ died and rose again as I shall speak more particularly upon the Article of the Resurrection The descent of CHRIST into Hell An observation upon the words of the Apostle Rom. 10.6 7. forbidding to ask who shall ascend into heaven or who shall descend into the abysse AMong so many men signalized by extraordinary events there are two remarkable one of which ascended into heaven and descended the other descended into the deep and re-ascended The first is Elijah who was carried up into heaven and afterward came back to the earth to accompany the Son of God in his Transfiguration The other is Jonah who went into the bottom of the gulfs and returned living But the one and the other were but a shadow of Christ to whom all these passages and returns agree more particularly For not onely he descended into the Abysse and returned but he is also ascended into heaven yet once more to come down Now I go not about to examine in what sense he said even before his Ascension that already he had ascended into heaven and already had descended from heaven Joh. 3.13 But concerning his descent into the deep the Apostle explaineth it openly when he opposeth those two one to the other To descend into the deep and To be brought back from the deâ—d For from thence followeth that to be brought back from the dead is to reascend from the Abysse And this also presupposeth that to descend into the Abysse is none other thing then to be reduced to the estate of the dead As for the name of the Abysse it is known that Jesus Christ calleth his Sepulchre the heart of the earth comparing it to the place where Jonah had been in the Abysse Matth. 12.40 From hence it cometh that many understand by the descent of Christ into hell that after his burial he was yet farther humbled so far as to sojourn in the estate of the dead that is to say within his Sepulcher from whence he was raised by his Resurrection Why Christ being on the Crosse pronounced the first words of the 22 Psalm These words expresse the complaint which he made of being forsaken of God And many Orthodox men take that extreme humiliation of Christ for his descent into hell Now why he did use the words of this Psalm a reason is given There is not a passage in all the Old Testament which better representeth the estate of Christ upon the Crosse There is seen the parting of his garments the casting of lots for his coat his hands and feet pierced his enemies wagging the head and vomit-out their mockeries He therefore used this Psalm as having been dictated for him But to this reason which is notorious to every one I will adde another which I ground upon an hypothesis maintained by some interpreters The first action say they that the Priests and the Levites daily did in the Temple into which they entered at break of day was to sing this two and twentieth Psalm the which upon this occasion beareth for the title A Psalm of the dawning of the day and beginneth My God my God why hast thou forsaken me I observe from hence that the first words with which the Priests began the first hour and the first act of their Functions are the same which Christ uttered in the last hour and the last act of the Redemption For having been already three hours upon the Crosse upon the point of rendering up his spirit into the hands of his Father and of declaring that all was finished he cried out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me He ended where the Priests began to shew that all the ancient Priesthood and all the service of the Temple from their beginning then expired and finished in him who is the end and closure of the Law The fruits of the death of CHRIST Why the Son of God deserred so long time to come and expiate the sins of the world THis question which the ignorant will blame of rashnesse is suggested unto us by the Scripture it self which hath set down the solution of it It is not enough to say according to the fashion of the ignorant that Jesus Christ came not sooner because God would not have it so We are to know why he would it not since himself hath shewed us the causes in the which are seen the rays of his wonderful wisdom About four thousand yeers passed after the fall of Adam before the Son of God came Sin multiplied with the multiplication of mankinde Death destroyed one generation after another All ages groaned for the Deliverer but he appeared not till after so long a time Now setting aside the marvellous Oeconomy by which God measured and divided the times which preceded the coming of Christ in which is seen an infinity of steps and proportions as so many stars which marched before the Sun we will onely say That it was important for the glory of God and to render so much the more glorious the benefit of Redemption that sin and death should reign a long time and devour a long rank of generations before the Saviour should shew himself For that long durance of sin and death extending it self thorow so many ages and infolding all the successions of people born the one after the other hath caused to be seen how great was the misery of mankinde and the necessity of the remedy and how great is the vertue of Christ who hath healed an evil so universal and so inveterate Rom. 5.14 That for these ends and to shew the abundance of Grace God permitted that sin should abound and that it might abound the Law intervened Rom. 5.20 It behoved therefore first that there should passe a long time before the Law should begin her raign and a long time before she should
of Jairus Eutychus were certainly raised again the very day of their death The son of the Shunamite he of Naim Tabitha and the man which was raised from death in the Sepulchre of Elisha most probably had not yet reached to their Third Day among the dead when they returned to life As on the contrary many others have been raised after their third day to wit Lazarus and the Saints that rose from the dust when Christ rose again This circumstance of the Third Day for the Resurrection hath been appropriated to Christ and marked out for him in the Calender of the Prophets to the end that among other signes which distinguish him from all others that were raised he might be known also by this as particular to him to wit that his Resurrection befell on the Third Day according to the Scriptures When Lazarus was dead our Lord let passe the Third Day before he raised him and stayed till the Fourth Joh. 11.39 Among divers reasons of this delay I reckon this The Son of God would not raise Lazarus the same day of his decease nor before he entered into the Sepulchre because he had already raised two dead which had not as yet been put into the earth to wit the young man of Naim and the daughter of Jairus which was deceased but a few hours before Now his intention was to extend his power yet farther to wit as far as within the grave as he did when from thence he fetched Lazarus But this dead man had not his Resurrection on the Third Day our Lord having deferred if till the Fourth and hindering the concurrence of it with his own in regard of this circumstance Three miraculous Sepulchres in the holy History The Scripture mentioneth three famous Sepulchres in the which God hath given life to the dead to wit That of Elisha whose corps served to raise another dead though himself returned not to life That of Lazarus which was raised from the dead but not by himself That of Christ who rose himself and at the same time raised many others whose graves he had opened at his own death Matth. 27.52 53. The two first were preparatories to the wonders of the third The Son of God raised others before he raised himself and again in coming out of the sepulchre he carried his power into the graves of others who were raised after him Four men that raised the dead before and after the coming of Christ The gift of Miracles was conferred upon divers who notwithstanding received not the power to restore life to the dead this kinde of Miracle being reserved to a small number of them The Scripture nameth but four who exercised this power two under the Old Testament and two in the New The two first are Elijah and his successour Elisha The one raised the son of the widow of Sarephta the other the son of the Shunamite The two other are Saint Peter and Saint Paul The one raised Dorcas the other Eutychus So God raised two instruments of the Resurrection before the coming of his Son and after he was gone out of the world Christ appeared between the two first and the two last as the Sun among the Planets spreading his quickning power over the dead of the one and the other Testament The continuation of the Article of the Resurrection of CHRIST His Ascension into Heaven His Sitting at the right hand of God Christ hath verified his Resurrection by all the proofs which could be given BEing come back from the dead he hath made himself known to be living Not to one person alone but to many men and women yea to above five hundred together Not at one onely time but at many and divers times Not for a little time but for the space of fourty days Not in one onely place but in many and divers in the city in the fields within the houses and upon the mountains Not afar off but in the same chamber in a close place Not by one means but by an infinite number of testimonies By the Hearing he causeth his voice to be known By Sight his lineaments and stature By the Touch the wounds of his hands his feet and his side By his Actions going coming and eating with his disciples he shewed that he was truely alive And beside all this by all the Scriptures beginning at Moses and going thorow all the Prophets he proved the necessity and verity of his Resurrection Why God never raised any person of note to converse among men except the Messiah Of all the dead which have returned into the world to sojourn there some space of time and frequent the company of men there hath not been except our Lord any Prophet nor any person otherwise famous Those whom God raised either were children as he of Sarephta and the son of the Shunamite or young people as he of Naim the daughter of Jairus and Eutychus or without any mark of eminent quality in the Church as he that came living out of the grave of Elisha Lazarus and Tabitha For as for the Saints which appeared on the day of the Resurrection of Christ they did no more then passe by and having shewed themselves stayed not at all among mortals neither are their names mentioned in the History Whereupon it may be asked Why being raised from the dead they stayed no longer time in the world that there might have been some time to converse with them And in sum Why none of the Patriarchs or of the Prophets have been called back from the dead to sojourn a while among men as Lazarus or Eutychus But without speaking of the Fathers of the Old Testament I will yet make this question Why did not our Lord raise John the Baptist who had been his forerunner and his contemporary in the days of his flesh Was it not to the purpose that that excellent Prophet so great a light of the Church and who had suffered death for the Truth should be returned unto life as well as the daughter of Jairus or the young man of Naim It is easie to conjecture why this was not done If Abraham or David or any one of the Prophets or any one of them who wrought Miracles in their life time had returned to the world there to make their abode there had never wanted those who would have honoured them excessively If Superstition made Idols of the dead bodies of Saints how much more would it have idoâ—ized the very bodies themselves living after their death This is one of the causes for which God liked better to raise an ordinary man who had touched the bones of Elisha then to raise Elisha himself For such a Prophet that had been so famous in Miracles had been adored by men if he had returned from the grave to be among them There was also another particular reason concerning John the Paptist It is known how high his reputation had been After his death that was ascribed unto him which was not For when the Son
at the last Day shall be carried up to heaven All the Miracles from the first to the last tend to carry man to heaven And by their beginning God would shew what should be their conclusion Why Adam was not carried bodily to heaven as well as Enoch The translation of Enoch was a preludium of ours which we expect and a testimony of eternal life where we shall be gathered together in body and soul But it is worth the enquiring Why God wrought not this Miracle in the person of the first man but deferred it until the seventh generation Behold then what may be said concerning it If Adam who represented all mankinde had been carried up to heaven as Enoch afterward was there would not have wanted some that would conclude that heaven appertained naturally unto men as children and heirs of Adam Now to prevent this errour and to teach us that heavenly beatitude is given by Grace and not by Nature the Wisdom of God found it not good that the common father of men should ascend corporally to heaven but would that he should die and that his body should remain in the earth Besides that which is most worthy of observation God would not translate Enoch till such time as Adam was dead and yet Enoch had already lived above three hundred yeers before the decease of Adam But after that Adam was dead Enoch was the first Patriarch that went out of the world For great reasons the going forth of Enoch was preceded by that of his grandfather In that of Adam who died God did shew what it is that men hold of their Nature to wit death In that of Enoch who was carried up without dying God hath shewed what it is that the righteous ought to expect from Grace to wit immortality In that of Adam the father of all is seen the condition of all men to whom it is appointed once to die In that of Enoch is seen the priviledge of Believers who shall be carried to heaven And as the death of Adam went before the rapture of Enoch so it behoveth that we die iâ— Adam before we can be carried up with Enoch Why God hath shewed the glory of heaven to some that were yet upon the earth and yet never shewed hell to any person while he was in this world Saint Steven being as yet here belowe the heavens were opened unto him and he saw the glory of God Saint Paul being as yet mortal was in the third heaven and heard unspeakable words that there were uttered But none whether Elect or Reprobate ever saw hell but after his death Why hath not that place of torment been shewn unto mortals as well as Paradise The cause for which God hath caused the joys of heaven to be seen hath been to the end to comfort his children and to encourage them to those sufferings which should be followed by such a glory The sight of hell maketh not for this purpose Nor is it enough to say that it might serve for the conversion of unbelievers For if a wicked man had seen hell he would no more amend then the brethren of the wicked rich man would have done upon the word of one dead that had come back from the bosome of Abraham Luke 16.31 Why Saint Paul being come back from the third heaven speaketh not of having Seen but onely of having Heard 2 Cor. 14.4 It may be that in effect he was transported thither rather to Hear then to See And this Either because being yet mortal God revealed himself to him as to Moses not by the sight of his face of which every man living is uncapable but by the words of his mouth Exod. 33.18 c. Or because being to descend yet from heaven hither below to instruct others he had need to receive instructions and by consequence it was more necessary for him to Hear then to See more profitable both to him and to those that were afterward taught by him For howsoever the words which he had heard were unspeakable yet they furnished him with great lights the which he forgot not but brought them from above to enlighten both himself and others Of Faith The Conclusion of this Treatise Two onely things at which Jesus Christ as man wondered THe one was the Unbelief of his country-men the Galileans Mark 6.6 The other was the Faith of a stranger to wit the Centurion Matth. 8.10 We read not that Jesus Christ in the days of his humiliation ever admired any thing but these two It is truely a thing to be admired that many are unbelievers in a greater light and that many have a great faith being enlightened but by a little spark Of a strange method by which God obligeth men to believe It were an impertinency and folly for one man to say to another I command thee to believe this for Belief is not formed by Commandment but by Perswasion None is master of the Belief of another no not of his own For a man cannot Believe all that he would yea he is often constrained to believe that which he would not as the devils believe against their will that there is a God The object of Belief is not Imperative but Indicative nor is it proposed in form of a Commandment but in that of a Narration Neverthelesse God doth not onely invite us to Believe in presenting to us the Truths which are the objects of our Faith but himself commandeth us This is his Commandment that we should Believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ 1 Joh. 3.23 Upon which we ought to consider that in commanding to believe he can cause us to believe His words when it pleaseth him to animate them with his Spirit plant Faith in the heart of man Nor doth it import that they be narrative or prohibitive or otherwise conceived For their efficacy dependeth not upon the form of the expressions but upon the secret vertue of their Author It were a great impropriety every way if a man should command me to believe for with all his commandments he cannot cause me to believe as long as my spirit perswadeth me to the contrary But God who is the Father and the Master of spirits can speak in the terms of Commanding because in commanding to Believe in effect he giveth the grace to Believe So that language which were absurd in the mouth of man is admirable in the mouth of God Of those that promise to Believe if the truth be shewn unto them There is nothing more ordinary among them which dispute against the true Religion then these words Prove me that which ye say and I will believe it But these people speak as if Faith onely depended upon themselves They promise that which is not in their power This is as if a blinde man should promise to know colours provided they be shewed unto him The Truth what evidence soever it bringeth with it is not perceptible but to him that hath eyes capable of discerning it Now this