were bred in them he turned his discourse on that side The ways of this method are transcendent and appertain to none but him who can read in our hearts A conjecture of what our Lord wrote when the Pharisees demanded his judgement touching the punishment of the adulteresse Joh. 8. Once onely we finde that he read and once onely we finde that he wrote That which he read is recited Luke 4. but that which he wrote is not expressed The holy History saith that upon the demand made to him by the Pharisees stooping down he wrote with his finger upon the ground two several times Some of our most eminent Divines think that they were not characters that bare any signification but that they were lines onely or marks drawn without any other meaning or designe but to divert the importunity of the Pharisees and to make them know that they were unworthy of any other answer But to take it so this action doth not seem sufficiently grave and serious nor which is more sufficiently worthy of the wisdom of the Son of God It is therefore more credible that this writing was significative Now though it be hard to finde what was contained in it since the History hath passed it over in silence neverthelesse many Expositours ancient and modern have brought their conjectures Let it be permitted to me to expresse mine The Law Numb 5. ordained that a woman suspected of adultery should appear before the Priest who among divers other ceremonies took of the dust which was on the floor of the Tabernacle and mingled it with water in an earthen vessel afterward having put the woman to her oath he wrote in a note those curses to which she had submitted and finally blotted out the writing in the water which he gave her to drink having first declared that if she were innocent that drink which contained the blottings of this writing mingled with the dust should not be hurtful to her Now between this Law and the proceeding of our Saviour toward the Pharisees there are found divers resemblances The businesse is concerning a woman an adulteresse The Pharisees alleadge the Law of Moses Our Lord would that they should examine themselves He writeth in the dust on the floor of the Temple where this action passed as if he should say You your selves are you innocent Could you drink this dust which beareth the writing of the oath of execration Let him among you that is without sin cast the first stone at her Why God sent for the forerunner of his Son a Prophet rather then a King And why there was no Christian King for the space of three hundred yeers after the nativity of Jesus Christ God could have raised a King in stead of a man clothed with Camels hair to prepare the way before the Messiah But it would have seemed that the foundations of the Kingdom of Christ which is not of this world had been laid through the strength of the arm of man The Divine calling also hath appeared more evidently in the sending of a Prophet for men can make a King but none but God can make a Prophet For the same cause the wisedom of God would that the Gospel should be spread thorowout the world long time before any King or Emperour embraced the Christian Religion for it is not easie to finde in History any Prince which made profession of it before Constantine the Great Now the Gospel had been before preached for the space of two hundred and eighty yeers To declare that it was not at all planted under the shadow of humane greatnesse Of the humane nature of JESUS CHRIST An excellent gradation in the four Evangelists describing the Genealogiâ— of Jesus Christ ALl the Evangelists exhibite unto us the Saviour but every one of them in his particular method Saint Mark describeth not at all the Genealogie of Jesus Christ but beginneth his History at his Baptism Saint Matthew searched out his original from Abraham chap. 1. Saint Luke followeth it backward as far as Adam chap. 3. Saint John passeth further upward even to the eternal generation of this Word that was made flesh chap. 1. So they lead us to Christ mounting up four several steps in the which he is represented to us In the one we see him onely among the men of his own time then when he conversed with them In the second he is seen in the tent of Abraham In the third he is yet higher to wit in Adam And finally having traversed all ages thorow so many generations we come to contemplate him in the beginning in the bosome of the Father in that Eternity in which he was with God Beyond this general harmony resulting from the agreement of all the Evangelists together there is another particular which I shall by and by observe Why the Scripture giveth the name of Antichrist to him that denieth the Humanity of our Saviour rather then to him that denieth his Divinity This is Antichrist which denieth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh saith Saint John in his first Epistle chap. 4. This Heresie is marked as the most capital and as the greatest opposition to Christianity To deny the Humanity of Jesus Christ is to deny his death and consequently his resurrection and all the dispensation of salvation The Humanity of Christ is more neer unto us and more perceptible by us then his Divinity So that it is an inexcusable crime in man not to acknowledge the Man Jesus Christ Why Jesus Christ after his resurrection called himself no more the Son of man as before-times Jesus Christ before his resurrection is oftener called the Son of man then the Son of God But after he was risen when he speaketh of himself he is no more called the Son of Man Surely the resurrection hath not brought to nothing his Humanity but this name of the Son of Man includeth the weaknesse and sufferings to which he had rendred himself subject as man Now after being delivered out of this abasement and being declared the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead he hath changed his style and is no more called the Son of Man which was the name by which he called himself ordinarily before his resurrection After this he spake divers times to his disciples calling to their remembrance the necessity of his death of which he had before advertised them But he no more expressed the name of the Son of Man When he was yet mortal It behoveth saith he that the Son of man suffer But being raised from the dead Ought not Christ saith he to have suffered Why the most glorious miracles which our Lord wrought were often preceded by some action which witnessed those weaknesses to which his humane nature was made subject In the same time that our Lord went to display his divine power by some extraordinary miracle he often beginneth with some act of humane weaknesse If he appease the tempest it is after he hath been overcome
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
by Adam who departed by a natural death We are here to admire the dispensation of this great God and the Wisdom of his Spirit which dictated the Scriptures These three men whom God first withdrew from the world the diversity which is seen in their going out and the order held in it were a sample or epitome of that great piece which he would unfold all along the ages and which was to be extended as far as the last men that shall be found living upon the earth Why God who hath foretold and set down the measures of certain particular times hath not revealed how long the world should endure or when the day of Judgement should be God at other times foretold How many veers space it should be before the Deluge Gen. 6.3 How many yeers the slavery of the Hebrews should endure Gen. 15.13 How many yeers there should be of plenty and famine in the days of Joseph Gen. 41.29.30 How many yeers the Jews should remain in the Captivity of Babylon Jer. 25.12 and 29.10 Dan. 9.2 How many yeers should passe to the death of Christ Dan. 9.24 We know that some of these predictions have been given four hundred yea four hundred and ninety yeers before their time expired Now there might be all the way computed from day to day how many yeers yet remained to the end of the time limited by those oracles Yea God hath not onely given an account of yeers but sometimes hath punctually set down the very day on which a deliverance or other event should come to passe Dan. 12.11 12. But neither the Day of the last Judgement nor the Yeer nor yet the Age which is to make an end of all the rest was ever set down in any Prophecie whatsoever the curious can say against it Now among the causes of this silence we are to consider this When God hath foretold that such or such a notable event where the time could not be foreseen by any humane wisdom should come to passe in such a Yeer or on such a Day the principal scope of these predictions hath been to confirm the faith of them which should see them accomplished Joh. 13.19 For they that lived until that time and saw the Prophecie effected precisely at the day named even against all appearance had so much the more reason to believe in God for the time to come in so manifest an experience of his infallible truth and the same also was a means to convert unbelievers But at the last Day it will not be the work to make provision any more for faith in regard of things to come not will there be any more place for the conversion of miscreants So that a revelation of that Day could not serve for those ends and uses for the which God had revealed divers other Days remarkable The Wisdom of God doth not give us superfluous predictions It is necessary to know that there shall be a last Day but not to know precisely when it shall be Of the holy Ghost Four remarkable productions which the Scripture attributeth to the Spirit of God to wit two in the Creation two in the Redemption AMong so many great and divers effects of the Spirit of God the Scripture mentioneth particularly these four productions 1. That of all the species which were enclosed in the masse of the elements in the beginning of the world for to cause them to bring forth the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters Gen. 1.2 2. That of the Soul For the breath of God which made man a living soul was the Spirit of the Almighty Gen. 2.7 Job 33.4 3. That of the body of Christ which alone among all men was conceived by the holy Ghost Luke 1.35 4. That of the new man For to become such it behoveth to be born again of the Spirit Joh. 3.5 6. Why the Scripture representeth the holy Ghost and his effects under the names of Water of Fire of Anointing with Oil and of Sprinkling of Blood The true interpretation of these terms contained in divers passages The Scripture speaketh of Water and the Spirit by which we are to be born again Of the holy Ghost and of Fire with which we are to be baptized Of the Unction which we have from the holy One which is an effect of the same Spirit Of the Sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus Christ which is wrought also by the holy Ghost Joh. 3.5 Matth. 3.11 1 Joh. 2.20 1 Pet. 1.2 So that the names of Water of Fire of Anointing with Oil and of Sprinkling of Blood are used to denote either the holy Ghost or those acts which he worketh in us Now it is very easie for one of the vulgar to speak to this and to say they are similitudes Many Commentatours and ordinary Preachers content themselves to alleadge to us some resemblances between Water and the holy Ghost and likewise some conformities and analogies between the Fire which purifieth and consumeth and the holy Ghost which produceth the like effects But there are other depths to sound It is requisite therefore to know that all the Purifications of the Law which were figures of that Purification which we have by the holy Ghost were wrought either by Water or by Fire or by Oil or by Blood All things which had need of cleansing were purified by one of these four means 1. By Water as it was practised in divers occasions For we know that washings with Water were very frequent under the Law It is not necessary to produce examples 2. By Fire as when God commanded to purifie the spoil which they had taken from the Midianites he ordained that all that which could endure the Fire to wit Gold Silver Brasse Iron Tinne Lead should be cleansed by Fire Num. 31.22 23. 3. By Oil as it was observed in the Unction of the Priests and that of the leprous Lev. 14.16 17 18. 4. By Blood as it is notorious and we shall see by and by that almost all things according to the Law are purged by Blood Heb. 9.22 Now to shew that all that which is required to a true Purification all that which the Law prescribed to those ends is found universally in the power of the holy Ghost the Scripture representeth it with its effects under the name of the matters and all the acts which served to the Legal Purifications I might speak of other things concerning this subject but they will come better to purpose in the doctrine of Baptism for which I reserve them A catalogue of those actions which were celebrated with Aspersion of Blood in the time of the Law All the Law was written in Blood The Priest the people went not but thorow blood Now to comprehend these so many different actions in which Blood intervened it will be to the purpose to distinguish them and reduce them into ranks or categories We finde therefore that there are seven kindes of actions solemnized by the Aspersion of Blood 1. The first